An Excuse to Be Kind to Yourself

Hi everyone! Vanessa here this week. If you’ve ever tried to make a big behavior change, you might have been tempted to go down the path of self-blame and away from self-compassion. You might have told yourself there was no room for excuses. But this week’s discussion, Overcoming Excuses, offers you a different path!

Your most common excuses, whatever they are, can be pretty valuable when it comes to knowing yourself as well as trying a new behavior; because these excuses often show you your current barriers to change. Knowing your barriers is arguably the most important part of making any change – you have to work within the context of those barriers in order to make any sort of sustainable change that works for your life. You are meeting yourself where you are right now.

So for example, if you work two jobs or your children have activities until 8 p.m. on weeknights, it’s probably not realistic to spend an hour cooking dinner. Or if you love bread, it would be overly restrictive to remove it from your regular intake. Or if you’ve tried running and hate it, it’s unlikely that you will stick with a couch to 5K program. See where I’m going here?

As Karen will mention this week, excuses are really just possible reasons why something isn’t happening. Ask yourself how you can make a change within the context of those reasons. And instead of beating yourself up with excuses, you can give yourself a high-five for finding a truer and more sustainable path forward.