Excuses Disempower Us - So Ditch Them

I wanted to write this blog post ages ago, but I didn't have time. And I was worried what people would think, because I'm shy. Because it felt silly. Because I thought it seemed obvious. Because I was worried people would think I was stupid. Because I was embarrassed. Lazy. Not clever enough. Not good enough. Not confident enough.  

So I didn't write it. Instead I made all of these excuses, and did nothing.

That's the problem with excuses. We always seem to have lots of them, lots of reason to not do something. Lots of reasons to do nothing. So we sit and we do nothing. We watch TV instead. We waste time in non-productive ways and we tell ourselves that we don't have time to do that other thing, or we're not clever enough, or we're not confident enough, or, or, or...

Excuses give us a reason to do nothing. And when we have nothing to do, nothing to take action on or focus on, we become disempowered and it's easy to give way to negative thought patterns, insecurity, anxiety and depression.

Because you can never really do nothing. Because when you're doing nothing, you're actually stagnating. Your creative muscles (as well as your actual muscles) are starting to atrophy. When you take action - when you do something - you move forward. When you do nothing you're actually moving backwards.

But what happens if we're decide to stop using excuses? We've been practicing mindfulness, so how about we use it to recognise when we are making excuses? Instead of saying we don't have time, how about we find time? Instead of watching TV spend five minutes working on a project? When you're stuck in traffic why not listen to an audio book? Look for ways we can multitask, or become more effective in the way we manage ourselves, as well as our time?

How about we stop hiding behind excuses and ditch them?

Because when we no longer have excuses to protect us, we have no choice but to take action.