Excuses
In the last couple weeks, I referred to sport (professionals and personal experiences), this week I want to build on this to talk about the excuses we give ourselves.
It takes 90 days for a new activity/routine to become a habit (it actually varies between 60 and 120 days). I will touch more on the concept of habits in the future as it’s a fascinating topic. At the end of the day humans are creatures of (empowering or disempowering) habits. A topic for another day.
So 90 days ….
Like many people, since the beginning of lockdown, I have been working from home. One day in early March, I realised that I had only walked 250 metres that day. Scary stuff. Checking my phone I realised that it was not an isolated case. I decided that I couldn’t keep going like this and forced myself to get moving. A mixture of walking, running and going to the gym (when they reopened) would do.
My target was 90 days in a row!
1st day, 2nd day, 3rd day,…
10th day, I was getting into the groove of it and excited…
20th …40th day getting strong,…
60th day visualise the 90 days….
As I reached Day 66, I had my second Covid vaccine. The next day I felt shit. Not sure how it worked for you but it wasn’t the best feeling ever.
A couple days later, on the Sunday I spoke with my sister who asked me this very simple question:
“So, are you going back to 0 then?”
…..[Pause] [fuck!]
As I recall, in that moment it sounded something like this…..
“Well….[excuse], [excuse], [excuse]…”
[long pause] more “….[excuse], [excuse], [excuse]…”
I laugh now and clearly see that I was trying get myself out of it. I knew she was right.
We all think that we don’t have:
enough time
enough money
More than that, we all believe that we’re:
too young/too old
not educated enough/too educated
not practical/intellectual
not clever enough
not canny enough
not the right background
not the right “pedigree”
not credible enough
__________
__________
__________
__________
….Fill the blanks with your own excuses. Don't be shy we all use some.
I started back at 0! I am back at Day 55 and more determined than ever before!
QUESTIONS…
What is the most frequent excuse you use to justify not to doing something?