I like making to-do lists. Well, perhaps like is too strong, but I find them very useful. Like most people these days I’m very busy and I haven’t got the greatest memory, so the to-do lists help me keep track of the important things that I want to do. I also find it satisfying to cross things off the list when I’ve completed the task.
Anyway, the other day I was glancing through one of the notebooks that I use for these lists and I had a bit of surprise. Through the crossings out between “finish painting airing cupboard” and “empty compost heap” was what looked like “excuses”. I was perplexed as I tried to remember why I thought I needed to create a load of excuses, after all it’s many years since I needed to play the dog ate my homework gambit. However, after a bit of squinting at my raggedy handwriting I solved the mystery. What I’d actually written was “exercises” (related to a foot injury I had).
This episode got me thinking about excuses and how we often make them to avoid doing things. Sometimes this is not a problem as the “thing” we are not going to do is of little or no importance. But often – I would suggest most of the time – these excuses prevent us from doing really important things – even things that can change our lives. What’s even worse is that these excuses usually reinforce very negative perceptions that we have of ourselves – and they are usually WRONG. For example:
“I can’t give up smoking/lose weight/get fit because I haven’t got the willpower” – you almost certainly do have this
“I really want to change my job/start that college course/turn my business idea into reality/ take up scuba diving, but the time isn’t right” – when is the right time? If it’s something important to you then the right time is almost certainly now.
“There’s no point in me applying for that job because I’m almost certain not to get it.” Well, the best way to guarantee failure is to give up and approaching a task with the expectation of failure is the next best thing. And of course when we do fail it gives us the chance to say “I told you so” to ourselves. To quote Henry Ford “Whether you think you can or that you can’t you are usually right.”
Like most of us I’ve trotted out plenty of these excuses myself over the years. For example, we’ve been renovating our house since we moved in four years ago. We’ve now almost finished the work but if I’d listened to my inner voice I wouldn’t have started. I lost count of the number of times I thought “I can’t do that!” when confronted with the next big task, but each time I proved myself wrong and did it.
There’s double benefit to this. Not only do you get more done, but as you do more things that you initially doubted you could achieve your confidence will grow.
So next time you find yourself avoiding something take a moment to think about why this is the case. Pay heed to that inner voice – what is it telling you? There may well be very good reasons not do something that make perfect sense. Just make sure that they are reasons and not excuses that don’t really reflect reality and only serve to hold you back.
Good luck
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