Reasons are just Excuses in a Top hat

I’ve have come up with all kinds of ‘reasons’ lately. “Reasons” that I’m not exercising, “reasons” that I’m not finished grading papers, “reasons” for not posting on the blog in weeks…and they are some great reasons! All the extra ‘fun’ (and not so!) stuff that was scheduled for the students over the past two weeks bumped my lessons more than a week, so that final papers got turned in the day we let out for spring break instead of the week before.

As for the running training and strength exercising that I was gonna be in the middle of by now…well my kid won’t settle for long, she’s a handful for nap time, I have all those papers to grade, meetings and early mornings don’t give me time…I have a ton of them!! Are you noticing a trend here? All these great reasons that I’m behind or not doing something I said I would do…they’re just excuses.

Isn’t that all a reason really is? An excuse all dressed up in it’s Sunday finery, top hat and all, just waiting to be paraded out for the company. Well guess what, maybe if I just admitted, even to myself, that these things are NOT the real cause of my lackluster performance, then I could start to pull it together and get things done.

Now I’m not saying that admitting to making excuses is going to solve all the world’s problems here. Far from it! My reasoning is just this: If I admit, just to myself, that the reason I didn’t exercise was not that I was worried about my daughter’s nap schedule or the stack of papers waiting on me, it was just simply that I did not want to..then maybe I will eventually change my tactic or my motivations. Or I just get rid of that activity.

Maybe I will admit that the problem is really that I lack organizational skills and need to better manage my time, among other things. Well then there I have it…a jumping off point for overhauling my paper grading/exercising/dieting/writing/everyotherdarnthing!

And maybe your reasons really are nothing more than good reasons. No top hats or fancy handkerchiefs waving in the breeze. If that is the case, I applaud you! If not…well they say admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. I just say, pass the potato chips and turn on Netflix!