A Letter from Chris Suarez
A LIFE LESSON FROM YOUR PELOTON
The Pacific Northwest experienced a heatwave this week with 8 straight days of 90-100 degree temperatures. I decided to bring my marathon training inside for the week so I spent quite a bit of time on my Tread.
While on my endurance run this week Matt Wilpers said something that stuck with me and made me challenge myself - my thinking and my actions.
At about mile 7 of my endurance run he decided to drop this:
“Excuses are like junk food - they are always there when you need to grab something.”
Funny how that works. It seems when we are the hungriest and most tired, there is always some sort of junk food for us to eat. Those chips, those cookies, that chocolate, that soda, the pizza. For the most part, we are at fault there. We bought those things in a momentary lapse in judgment in the first place. We all have friends that always have junk food to hand to us at a moment’s notice. Or we often put ourselves in a situation where all of those temptations are. When was the last time you walked through a grocery store where the end cap of the isle was really pushing that broccoli? Or the two pounds for the price of one carrots? Or the taster attendant had set up an incredibly attractive table where they handed out snap peas?
Instead we walk by beautiful displays of Lucky Charms, the 106th Dorito flavor, or the latest chocolate bar. The fact remains, regardless of how disciplined we may be with our grocery store habits or environmental control, junk food is always there when we need to grab something.
The same is true with excuses. There is always an excuse to grab when we need one or want one. They are right there at the end of the aisle to pick up and put in our cart. At times they become part of our automatic language such that we don’t even realize we are using them.
I am too busy.
I am tired.
I don’t have enough time.
Something else came up.
There will always be something that can get between us and our goal. That could be a business goal. It could be a personal goal. It could be a relationship goal. It could be a health goal.
Excuses ultimately become a way for us to remove ownership of the result or achievement of something, and hand that power over to something or someone else. In effect, each time we use an excuse, we are giving up a little more ownership, a little more power, a little more agency.
An excuse is a “a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault.”
There is no shame in not hitting a goal.
There is no weakness in not achieving everything we set out to achieve.
The danger and weakness lies in justification. When we look to justify an excuse or blame away why something didn’t happen, we slowly end up developing the excuse habit. We will alway be able to find a reason or excuse as to why we didn’t hit the business goal, the personal goal, the relationship goal, or that health goal.
This week look for those hidden excuses that have snuck their way into your language. The more agency and ownership we take, the more control we give back to ourselves over our activities and our results. It’s a pretty virtuous cycle for every area of our life.
And speaking of virtuous “cycles”, I need to get off my computer and get back on the treadmill.
Chris