By Amy Jacobson
Our mind really is our closest friend. Sometimes it’s our best friend and sometimes it’s quite the opposite. When a difficult conversation rears its ugly head, it’s the excuse mindset that has our back.
It not only helps us to avoid and not make it happen, but it also justifies and helps us to feel okay about not doing it. As though it’s not our fault — it’s totally out of our hands.
It’s so much easier when we aren’t the reason for something not happening; it takes the personal side out of it and also removes accountability. We use this excuse mindset to make ourselves feel better about not acting. The excuse mindset can be activated at any time, not just when a difficult conversation is required, but any time we don’t want to do something.
There are three main areas to our excuse mindset:
Limitations
Our conscious mind uses more of our logical and analytical brain, whereas our subconscious uses our emotional brain, values, beliefs and experiences. Sometimes these areas do not quite align.
Our logical brain knows what to do, but our subconscious mind is not quite on board with it. This creates a limitation in our ability to move forward. It doesn’t feel right. It might make us feel a bit nervous or sick in the stomach. The emotions that are being produced by our emotional brain are limiting the logical brain from taking full control.
Cognitive dissonance is when we have a strong value or belief in place, yet our actions are doing the opposite. The easiest way, or the path of least resistance, is generally what we look for in the first instance in any situation. When this is not straightforward or available, we create limitations or even convince ourselves it is impossible to do simply because it’s not easy.
If one of our systems at work is not capable of doing something, we are quick to say it can’t be done before considering whether there is a manual way or a workaround that would achieve a similar result. This means more and/or harder work for us — creating a limitation — so we avoid it all together.
Fears
Fear has a very relevant role to play within each of us and that is to keep us safe and out of any potential danger. If we look back to the early ages, this fear was extremely important to stop us from being eaten by a wild animal or getting seriously injured.
These days, our environment has rapidly progressed and while we are unlikely to be at regular risk of being eaten or injured, fear finds other ways to make us feel like we need protection. These fears include:
- fear of death
- fear of loss of control
- fear of judgement
- fear of the unknown
- fear of failure
There are many different things each of us can list as fearing, such as heights, spiders, public speaking, confined spaces, snakes, fire and birds. When it comes to fear, it’s the potential/worst-case outcome that we fear more than the actual situation.
So, with heights, it would be a fall resulting in death (which is really a core fear of death). Public speaking worst-case scenario tends to be being laughed at or made fun of, or not being able to answer a question, so it’s a fear of judgement, failure or the unknown.
When we can work out what the core fear is, we start to see it popping up in different aspects of our lives and if we can work on that core fear, we can progress in so many areas of our lives.
When our excuse mindset kicks in, triggered by a core fear, it’s our relationship with that core fear that stops us from doing whatever we should be doing. Understand and take control of the core fear so that the limitation is not triggered in the first place.
Time
Time is our number one excuse and totally lacks ownership of any kind: ‘I don’t/didn’t have time’. It takes a mindset shift to really understand this excuse mindset, as we have embedded it so deeply and it’s so common in our language.
We know that we all have 24 hours in each day. None of us has any more or any less time. Within this 24-hour period, there are people who do absolutely extraordinary things and others who do very little. Some days we are super productive while on others we relax.
Regardless of how we spend those 24 hours, it’s a choice based on our priorities and potential consequences. It’s not time’s fault that we didn’t do it.
When we break down time, the context becomes so relevant. Simply looking at what happens in one minute across the world is quite staggering. Every minute, 203,472,222 emails are sent. Just process that: more than 203 million emails are sent every minute! If emails are the bane of your existence and you feel like you spend your workday stuck in your email inbox, this is why.
It really comes down to what we are willing to do. How hard are we willing to work? How badly do we want this done and do we really want to achieve the outcomes?
Time is real. Blaming time is a bullshit excuse. Choose your time more wisely based on those things that really matter to you. If it doesn’t really matter or is not a priority, own and accept that it’s not a priority compared to the other ways you can spend your time.
When you own that it’s on you and not on time, priorities tend to change.
Amy Jacobson
