Do people just make excuses?
Dominic asked do people just make excuses for not reaching their goals?
Well they do but I think its more complicated than just making excuses.
Dominics question struck a cord with me, and I felt a blog coming on. I am constantly annoyed by the quick fix culture, that would have us think that Rome was not just built in a day but it came in a flat pack box with no instructions necessary ! Voila!!!
Yes people make excuses because they are often defending their way of doing something because its the only have one way they have. Their patterns will have been set often in child hood but they might need some exploration and expansion if their way isn’t working.
New ideas and new perspectives can help enormously, the idea that we just keep trying to reach goals and repeat the same methods over and over , this creates a cycle of try, fail, feel guilty beat yourself and then (repeat). No wonder we get fed up and give up. The media doesn’t help with this either, it never says “work at it” or “it takes time” does it? It lies and say its easy you should be able to do this, take this pill, do this for 6 days etc. Achieve this in several days, no effort required. Really theirs a lot of liars out there and creative untruthful marketing.
We need to look at what we want to achieve and if there are other ways to achieve it other than what we have already tried and failed at. For instance so many people go to the gym for an hour. Why not half an hour, a half hour run works for me, an hour often doesn’t fit and I find it daunting. I end up running for an hour a lot of the time but I only ever plan to run for 30 mins. I also mix things up so I don’t get bored. Boredom is a killer of most health campaigns.
We need to be able to introduce new ideas, new concepts and find what works for us, we need to recognise that effort is required but it doesn’t have to be massive or over worked effort, baby steps are best because its over hard or complicated we won’t make it. We need to find a balance not the all or nothing approach that often gets adopted. One size is never going to fit it all and neither should it.
We may have to revise our thinking we can think and look at things differently if we take the time and gain new perspectives from others. We can look at our relationship with food, our selves and our relationship with change too. Is there a secondary gain from staying where you are?
There are often many ways of doing things but we will hold stubbornly to that way and repeat and repeat it, each time the guilt getting a bit worse, the failure building until we give up. Whats the pointt! Then we try again because we are often not sure of hope that it will work next time! Hope is never in short supply but we hope it will be different even though we don’t change anything.
When setting goals we state I am going to do xyz and then rush off before planning properly, that means looking at what we are going to do and when, what resources we need, exploring the restraints, what support is out there, what may go wrong, what normally goes wrong, how can we prevent this.
We shoiuld do contingency planning and have a plan B and some flexibility is also required. If tmy dogs has kept me up at night and I am too tired for a run then I might cycle to the bank the next day. I don’t see it as failure that I didn’t run, I chose to move it but in a less demanding way, I just revise the plan to fit where I am at.
We are all too hard on ourselves, its not that we make excuses, I think we just focus our effort in the wrong places at times. We have a much better relationahip with failure than success what would happen if we start to look at what the end result looks like, and how we would feel what would it open up and what would change feel like. We need to really buy into the process then we have to work out the process before we make it happen.
It doesn’t help that we get mixed messages around most things including the food industry and from the media. You are too busy too cook so we have created all these packets for you to open and ping in the micowave!. Really are you too busy or are you just not interested in it?
The reality is you can cook something in the time it takes for a take-away to get to you and you can roast a parsnip in the same time it takes to cook oven chips. We have been convinced that cooking is long an labourous so why bother!
You are told the yogurt in your kids lunch box is fine because its low fat, that may well be true but they neglected to tell you its loaded with sugar, and we know sugar feeds dopamine levels like cocaine does, both are highly addictive to your brain. Its addictive but hard to avoid even your bread is filled with hidden sugars not just the cakes.
We might have to revise what healthy actually means, its not eating salad all day it’s a balanced diet and one Mcdonalds won’t kill you but if that’s your staple diet then expect to feel crap over time. We can learn easy recipes and we can find the time to cook simply and healthy, we don’t have to slave over the hot stove to be healthy but we do have to go into the kitchen and get a pot or two out. Real food is the answer to all your health needs it really not freaky diets, cutting out food groups. Too much processsed food is the enemy, they even put green colouring (Tartrazine) in my mush peas and it annoys me! Stop messing with my food!!
We have been programmed that its cool not to cook but many enjoy the pleasure of being creative in the kitchen. Funny how we spend more time watching cooking programmes but not cooking. It doesn’t have to be fancy or take masses of time. If you plan a lot and put in some effort you can reach your goals, no matter what they are.
I am a firm believer in not dieting but learning to cook and prepare food, my fast food is a smoothie or today it was scrambled eggs and peas. Theres a plan for quiet days and there is a plan for busy days, a fruit and veg smoothie is my fast option or something I froze earlier. Preparation is key!
Good luck with your goals don’t repeat the same thing over and over, get some support if you are struggling, change the thinking first and the rest will follow. It all starts with your control centre..Thats your brain!
Its quite possible we have some thinking the wrong way around, I am going to get on with my life when I get tto the right weight.. How about getting on with your life and you may get to the shape you want!
If you need help with those goals come and see me we will turn your excuses into, a plan that you can put into action, taking on board the feelings too. We can get to that wondeful feeling of achievement!
It will take time though there are no quick fixes here!
A really interesting video as I have used the example of problem eating..