How to Stop Shoulding In Your Pants
By: Roberta Ravella
Tags: Excuses, Productivity, Women In Business, Sales, Mindset

Shouting into his microphone, a guru says: “Flush those stinky excuses down the toilet like the BS they are!”

I’m listening to a podcast on my morning walk. Everyone can stand a little “how to know you will reach your goals” to go with their cardio.

“That’s the only way to reach your goals and be a winner!” He spits a little this time. “Just flush that excuse S**T down the toilet!

As a wise gastro-specialist once told me “there’s a lot of really good info about what’s going on in your body in those toilet floaters”.

EWWW . . . but true.

It’s a bit of a gross topic, but I had known said gastro person long enough to give it a listen. Apparently the “bad stuff” our bodies flush out, can show us if we are functioning well or not so well.

For some reason the guru and the gastro seemed pretty similar too me. Maybe because “excuses” and “poo” have the same stinky connotation.

I can’t remember how many times I have been beaten over the head by a coach or my sales manager or myself with “what’s your excuse for not doing your ________ now, Roberta”? Fill in the blank with whatever you like, sales calls, prospecting, healthy eating . . .

How many lectures/workshops/courses are out there on the topic? There are no good excuses! Those are for losers! Millions maybe?

But maybe just like what your body expels as not wanted holds a lot of good information, your excuses hold some pretty darn good information wrapped up in them too.

Let’s put on the white lab coat and have a look, shall we?

What’s behind the excuses or reasons for saying we want to reach a goal, and then not doing the activity that it will take get us there?

Sometimes it’s as simple as not really wanting to get there in the first place. I have given plenty of excuses for not doing something that I thought I “should” do or should want to do, but didn’t.

Do you really want what you say you want? If you don’t want to do the work, you don’t really want the outcome. Famed psychotherapist Alfred Adler cautioned us against shoulding on ourselves. Not examining what we actually want, but instead going with what we should do in the eyes of our culture, society, or family structure. It can be difficult to go against the grain of what you feel makes you a success or what your family values as successful. The worst outcome would be to end up at the end of it all and realize you never lived the life you wanted to, because of “should dos”.

To me, the only loser is someone living someone else’s life.

Sometimes we don’t believe that it’s possible for us, or that we don’t deserve it. You may have many reasons for feeling that way, be it childhood programing, past failures or just poor self-talk. You’ve got to believe in what you are building. I was once counseled to never say something to myself that I wouldn’t say to a good friend. Examining what I was saying to myself, and realizing how damaging it was, became the start of living my own life and knowing I deserved to do so. What do you say when you talk to yourself? Hopefully you grant yourself some grace and compassion along the way.

Sometimes we want the outcome, but the method we chose to get there is like crawling through broken glass. This was true for me in sales and in healthy living/eating. I had accepted that there were only a few methods, and if had to just pick one, put on my big girl pants, and muscle through. This is faulty thinking.

There are rarely few techniques for getting us where we want to go. If you know you want to reach your goals, but struggle with the activity to get yourself there, examine what it is you hate about it. Can that piece be changed? Can you find another method?

Do some research; find out how others got there. Then develop your path based on proven principles. When the right principles are applied, techniques become secondary.

If you are making excuses in general, god bless ya, it seems to be the nature of humanity.

But if you are making excuses about something you believe you want to accomplish, like looking at the poos in the toilet, take some time to get to the bottom of it. Being 100% honest with yourself is the antidote. It may seem scary or difficult, but well worth it if living your own life — the one you actually want to live — becomes the result.