No Excuses….Anymore!

No Excuses….Anymore!

“The only thing standing between you and your GOAL is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it”

        Jordan Belfort.

I have heard them all. I have heard every possible excuse under the sun. Some have substance and are legit and some are completely frivolous and lack any sort of meaning whatsoever. “It’s too cold”, “I had a big day at work”, “I had to take the kids to a party”, “I was too tired”, “I wasn’t feeling 100%”… Cop outs. Each and every one of them is an excuse and we make excuses to get out of things. I do it. We all do it.

I am writing this to say STOP IT NOW! Stop sabotaging YOUR happiness with your excuses and your laziness. You may not agree with me on this and you might get offended by what I have to say but if you do then that means that what I am about to say holds some form of truth.

We are all busy. We all work long hours. We all have commitments. Some of us are looking after multiple people and most of us are very time poor. But to not get to your goals (Be it fitness based or other personal goals) because of these excuses is a lie to yourself and personally, I am sick to death of hearing them.

Human beings are such fascinating creatures. We have freedom of thought, speech and we can control our own destiny or life with whatever we do. We are intelligent, creative, competitive and most of us are increasing our knowledge on a daily basis. With freedom of thought however comes complacency, laziness and delegation of tasks and responsibilities. In order to conform with society, we must work and earn our way in this world and this becomes an urgent priority. This usually coincides with a lack of personal time. However, as human beings, we will find the easiest way to do something with the time that we have. This might mean not preparing meals, grabbing takeaway on the way home, grabbing a soft drink out the fridge and parking our arses on the couch while watching My Kitchen Rules while we are stuffing our faces with processed foods and artificially sweetened drinks. I understand that this is not everyone but I hear it so much! Far too many people out there are saying that they have no time to cook. Far too many people saying they have no time to work out. Far too many people giving me excuses as to why they did nothing over the weekend. Don’t explain it to me. Explain it to yourself as to why you had cheated yourself out of being a better you.

When we have our backs against the wall, we can do some amazing things and are forced out of our comfort zones but this is very rarely the case in today’s world. The way society is these days, we have choices for everything. We can go for a run or we can play some Playstation 4. We could go do the 1000 steps or we can watch season 1 of Friends. We could even go to bootcamp at 6am or we could sleep in through our alarms. We all have choices and your choices are hurting you and your family. As long as we have these choices, we will continue to make excuses for our laziness.

I guarantee that if I went through all of your schedules, I could find you at least 30 minutes where you could work out. If you have a Facebook account and you are on there every day, you have no leg at all to stand on. If you have time for Facebook, you have time for a workout! Just a 30 minute workout will only take up 2% of your day. Just 2%. So you are telling me that you are too busy for the other 98% of your day? If you sleep more than 8 hours a day, you have no leg to stand on. We only need 6-8 hours a night to function properly. If you are flat out busy and you sleep 8 hours a night, have 7 hours 30 minutes of sleep. It will not kill you. If it is too cold to work out, then get your arse into gear, start moving and warm yourselves up. I can get myself sweating and warmed up in 2 minutes and that is not an exaggeration of the truth. Let’s face it people. Excuses do not burn calories so do not continue to conjure up more excuses. If you are not happy with the way that you look or feel, you have absolutely no one to blame but yourself. Some of you tend to emotional eat but you are the one who decided to smash down that block of chocolate or drink that 1.25L bottle of coke because “You were sad” or “You were stressed.” For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You eat chocolate because you are sad and now you are fat because of it. Actions have consequences and you have nobody to blame but yourself. Same as excuses.

This 8 week challenge was set up to try and motivate people through the toughest time of the year to train. Some of you I tip my hat off to and I am so excited to see what you can accomplish in as little as 8 weeks. However it does really disappoint me to hear some of the excuses as to why people didn’t fully commit to the 8 weeks. Some were doing so well at the start and “Just lost motivation.” For some people, they don’t feel they are competitive enough to do the challenge and some have flat out told me that they didn’t have the time to work out, prepare meals and be disciplined. The one that upsets me the most is when people stop altogether because they have an injury. We are all going to get a few niggles from time to time. I have no reason to do this 8 week challenge and I have a niggle in my hip that will require surgery yet when the results are in and the pictures are done, I will be thrilled with my results because I didn’t use my sore hip as an excuse to stop working out or use it as an excuse to stuff my face with pringles and starburst lollies.

I make excuses too. I am not on my high horse preaching from the heavens however I know when it comes to achieving anything in life, making excuses will hold you back from being truly happy. There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you only do it when it is convenient however when you are committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.

Commit 30 minutes a day. 2% of your day. Set a time to work out and stick to it like you would with starting work. If you like morning sessions, wake up and do not sleep through your alarm and use lethargy or tiredness as an excuse and if you like evening sessions, do not even think about using work as an excuse or using tiredness as an excuse. You can do it! Why are you stopping yourself from being happy?

Excuses are for people who simply don’t want it bad enough.

If you were at any part offended or upset by what you have read, then there is a stick of truth to what I have just said so you can let it affect you or you can do something about it and change your life.

Brad Carroll

Mobile Personal Training Specialist 

4 U Body Fitness