The Daily Love, a website full of motivational and inspirational articles, put out a post recently talking about how excuses get you nowhere (click on the link to read the article). In short, it called out the typical excuses that we hear and give in order to keep us from attempting to pursue our dreams. We know them all too well, but they range from the infamous, “I don’t have enough money,” to the overused fail-safe of, “I don’t have enough time.”
I have touched on excuses vs. reasons in previous posts, and echoed a lot of what The Love’s article preaches. Change is always frightening, and fear of the unknown is enough to keep the majority of us in our comfort zone. The problem with this is that if we are not changing, we are not growing. We know what we will get by staying exactly where we are…but what happens if we take that leap of faith?
I’m not encouraging life-altering decisions in the matter of a few days (although if you decide to do just that, kudos to you for having some serious b*lls), but lately I have witnessed an awful lot of the, “I don’t have enough time,” excuse as to why someone cannot change their life or even start to work on tiny steps that would lead to a happier future. Quite frankly, it’s BS and I’d like to take a moment (time is of the essence, after all) to call this excuse out.
An old friend once told me, “Don’t find time, make it.” I will admit, I was guilty of using the excuse- and he flat out called my bluff. Regardless if the quote is his or not, it was one of those moments where reality hit, and that phrase has stuck with me ever since. We all are super busy as we try to juggle multiple things at once. That however, is going to remain fairly constant. Unless we quit our jobs, leave our families, etc., we all have the day-to-day responsibilities we have to manage. We can control though how we manage our time, especially with those responsibilities.
An example: My work schedule does not change. Every day, from the hours of 8:30am (sometimes earlier) to about 5:30pm (sometimes later), I put in my time. When I come home, I exercise (this is not a choice, it’s a scheduled event, like work is). After I exercise, I make dinner (as I’m trying to eat healthy and therefore making all homemade meals). From the time I wake up in the morning to get ready (7am), to the time I’m done cleaning up with dinner (about 8:30pm), my schedule is just blocked. I use to finish dishes after dinner and watch TV or read. By 10pm, I’d venture off to bed and then repeat the cycle the next day. I also preached that I had no time to work on the things I really enjoyed or the things that would make me happy in the future….lies (subconsciously, that is). By waking up one hour earlier, and using my time in the evening to work on things that will ultimately lead to a happier future, I have essentially “found” 2-3 hours of time that I always had, but was choosing not to utilize. Is a schedule without a lot of downtime overwhelming? Absolutely! Am I an overachiever? Possibly. Am I already seeing opportunities arise and new life changes on the horizon? YES! Can you say the same?
The moral of the story is, don’t find time, make it! And as every moment counts, try not to waste them on making excuses when you could be creating change.
Imagine what you could do with a three day weekend…
Stephanie
