There are many excuses we offer for not exercising or not taking care of ourselves emotionally, physically, or spiritually, but perhaps the most common excuse for most people is that they are just too busy. We are running the kids around, we are taking care of our parents, we are overloaded at work… the list goes on. But the truth is, we allow this type of busy-ness to come into our lives and control our lives. Why is that? A yoga friend of mine loaned me her book, Excuses Begone, by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I thought he zeroed in on this excuse very well. He said that we play these self-defeating thoughts through our heads and make them self-fulfilling prophecies. We begin this early in our lives.
The good news for us, though, is that we can counter those ideas and start to play a new message. Here are four new messages we can say instead:
~ I know I’m not a bad parent if I don’t arrange my life to be available to chauffeur the children every day until they’re adults.
~ I’m allowed to say no to requests that keep me from having time to pursue my life purpose.
~ There’s no such thing as “a place for everything and everything in its place.”
~ There is no right way of doing things.
~ I can have it my way because there are no absolute universal rules.
Dr. Dyer says that we can change these thoughts by adding the following affirmation: I intend to take time for myself to live the life that I came here to live, and to do it without ignoring my responsibilities as a parent, spouse, or employee.
In this book, Dr. Dyer comes up with an additional 17 excuses that we dream up for preventing ourselves from achieving our life’s purpose. What excuse is holding you back?