Posted on July 12, 2016 by Jenny Cromack
I had an interesting conversation with one of my personal training clients recently. She said she had started relabelling why she hadn’t fit in her training or followed her healthy eating as reasons rather than excuses.
I liked this approach, it meant that you could genuinely justify why you hadn’t taken postive action and highlight when you may have had a moment of weakness. For me, a reason means there is a genuine reason why you couldn’t get to the gym, go out for a run, take your lunch to work, etc whereas an excuse is just that…it’s an excuse for not doing something you should be doing, it’s a ‘cop-out’.
After speaking to my personal training client about this, she said using the word reason made her consider her actions more. Did she genuinely not have time to get out for a run or was she just making up an excuse because she couldn’t be bothered?
The next time you are considering whether you should skip the gym, have that extra glass of wine, grab a chocolate bar from the vending machine, buy a take-away ask yourself is there a genuine reason why I am doing this? If there is then fill your boots, if not and you’re just making excuses because you can’t be bothered to make the time, don’t have the energy, are feeling lazy/fed up then ‘have a word’ with yourself and realise you are making excuses and that you will actually feel better if you implement the behaviour you are making excuses for. So, ignore the excuses (and that little devil on your shoulder) , and make the time to do what you need to do to get the results you desire.
We all lead busy lives. Those who succeed in achieving their goals are the ones who prioritise their healthy eating and training, alongside their families, careers…whatever is important to them. I’m not saying curve balls aren’t thrown at us once in a while, in fact, curve balls are often genuine reasons why we may have gone ‘off-piste’, BUT if you can control as many ‘excuses’ as you can and plan for these you will stick to your regime and reap the rewards.