Remember, no approach is “good” or “bad” unless seen in the light of the situation. It may actually be unwise for Joe to get the Lamborghini, but “unwise” and “impossible” are two very different things. He saw it as impossible because of his circumstances without realizing his present-self and future self would be living in two different realities – and these realities are created by his choices.
He felt he didn’t have a choice at all. His response was essentially “I can’t” which removed his choice. He chose to give up his power to choose. Had he realized he potentially could have gotten the Lamborghini with enough creativity, but simply chose not to for good reasons, his response would have been “I won’t” rather than “I can’t.” The difference between these two statements is the difference between freedom and slavery.
Saying “I can’t” isn’t inherently false, but it’s more complete to say “I can’t right now.” Realize “I can’t” puts you in shackles to your current circumstances, which will be true if you wish to choose to focus on that truth.
However, you may also choose to shift out of that thinking and consider, “What could be?” The future holds near limitless possibilities beyond your mind’s consideration. Limitless possibilities, however, can be paralyzing by having so many options to consider. This is why one may wish to remain with the thought of no possibilities rather than face overwhelming possibilities.
If you’ve ever felt a burden with so many choices to make, or had the quality problem of not wanting to miss out on all the amazing opportunities you could take, you know that this is a real challenge. With this understanding, you may start to get a glimpse at how limitations can actually be liberating to control the number of choices you have.
Without a balance of the two perspectives, like the balance between day and night, you’d either feel nothing is possible or everything is possible, both of which can be enslaving.
Now let’s take a look at Jessie.
She had more subjective excuses like “not enough time and discipline.”
These excuses may also take the form of, “I’m not that type of person, so it won’t work for me.” This is an excuse that’s less about your present outer circumstances and more about your inner identity. It’s far more subjective than something like how much money is in a bank account.
These types of excuses can be more readily called BS, but let’s not ignore that from a certain perspective, they’re absolutely true. Jessie may be working really hard as a mom, and let’s give single moms some credit for how much they sacrifice. Her schedule could be filled with critically important things like work and taking care of her kids.
I’d be willing to bet that Jessie, despite her belief, has far more discipline than the average person. She simply feels she doesn’t because she’s so drained busting her ass with all the other things she’s taking care of. But all that matters is how she feels about herself, because her telling herself that she doesn’t have the energy or discipline will make it nearly impossible for her to find it.
You won’t seek out what you don’t believe is there. You must first discover the unseen possibility before it can ever be seen as reality.
Jessie’s excuse that she doesn’t have enough time is actually an objective lie. That’s because we don’t “have” time. It exists outside of us. This may seem like semantics, but as long as you’re trying to “get” more time, you’ll find it’s impossible.
What you may do instead is make choices about how you’re spending the 24 hours a day that exists outside of us. From this understanding, what Jessie is really saying is, “I’m making other things mean more to me than this workout and diet program.”
Boom! Now we’re dealing with the truth.
And is there anything wrong with this?
Perhaps there is, perhaps not.
It’s neither my place nor yours to judge Jessie for what she makes meaningful.
However, if we explored it deeper, we might find the reason Jessie spends so much time working and raising her kids is because raising a good family matters to her. She feels she needs to be in her kids’ lives, and taking time for herself would take away from that.
But what if her declining health leads to her lacking enough energy and strength to take care of her kids and play with them, having mood swings and being a worse parent, and eventually being sick and in the hospital because she hasn’t taken at least some time to look after her own health? What if the example she sets of poor health choices rubs off on her kids, and now they adopt poor health habits? What if her attempt at being a good mom actually makes her a worse mom? In other words, she slingshots herself into “bad mom” by constantly moving towards “good mom.”
This isn’t so hard to believe. As a fitness coach, this seems to be more the norm than the exception. Obviously she doesn’t need to sacrifice her job and family entirely to start taking better care of her health. Just like one may momentarily find it important to hold their breath, it’s not all or nothing.
If Jessie is honest about her situation, she may find herself in this situation. “I want to be a good mom and need to take the best care of my family, but to take the best care of my family, I need to not take care of my family… temporarily.”
This is a “no shit” type of truth, but it bears deep consideration: Giving up something temporarily doesn’t mean giving it up entirely. Sometimes you must give up what matters most in this moment to have even more of it in your future.
She is trying so hard to move towards taking care of her family that she may ultimately end up doing a worse job at taking care of her family. She’s neglecting the fact that she temporarily needs to spend time working on herself.
That could be with a diet and exercise program, and that could also mean taking time to de-stress, get a massage, go on vacation, catch up on sleep, take up a fun hobby to recharge her batteries, or other things. Just like getting weaker is necessary to make you stronger, this time away from taking care of her family could actually make her better at taking care of her family. She spends less quantity of time with her family and job, but then when she does spend time with these things, the quality of that time goes up to more than compensate for it.
The big problem with Jessie’s excuses is that she’s a hard worker as a single mom and therefore seems to deserve a lot of praise and validation for her reasoning. Doesn’t she deserve a lot of credit for being such a hard worker and willing to sacrifice from herself for others?
Not so fast...
Sacrifice for others and hard work are often praised as good things, but remember, nothing is good or bad outside of context. Her hard work would deserve praise if she’s working hard when she needs to, and also knows when to either stop working so hard, or when to work just as hard on something else that’s needed to create a more balanced life.
Remember…
Hard work is destructive if you’re working hard at going in the wrong direction.
Could your hard work at times actually be sabotaging yourself?
Are you working so hard on doing things that matter that you’ve forgotten about things that matter even more?
Are you working so hard on educating yourself that you aren’t doing enough to implement what you learn?
Are you working so hard on implementing the things you’ve learned that you aren’t doing enough assessing of whether or not it’s really working for you?
Are you working so hard on what was taking you in the right direction that you’ve overlooked the fact that now it’s starting to take you off course?
Are you working so hard on finding inner peace and happiness that you’ve overlooked creating change in the physical world?
Are you working so hard at making the world a better place that you’ve let your own inner world turn to shit?
Are you working so hard at justifying your existing bullshit that you’ve forgotten it’s only a temporary story, and now you can choose something new?
If it feels impossible t
o consider all of these things, good. If it feels like there’s no way you can ever “maintain” balance and harmony in your life without something being sacrificed, good. It’s OK to be feeling overwhelmed. It’s OK to be feeling out of balance. It’s OK to be feeling like this is impossible to always make the right choice.
Let this feeling grow as you continue to the read the book, because you’re going to need to draw upon this feeling for the strength to do the one thing you need to do – the secret to overcoming all of this – and it will require relentless effort on your part. Let the tension grow inside of you, because it means you’re pulling back the slingshot into the realm of uncertainty, overwhelm, confusion, imbalance, and chaos only to be potentially released, bringing you even closer to balance, harmony, and peace.
Justifications
Excuses give you a reason “out” of something, and justifications are the opposite side of the coin – a reason to go “into” something. They coexist, because whatever you’re excusing yourself out of, you’re justifying whatever you want to do, or feel you need to do, instead.
“I don’t have enough money to get training on how to improve my life, finances, or health” can excuse someone from investing in their education. This would also then be a justification for remaining ignorant.
This is a key point. Every “no” has something else you’re saying “yes” to. Every “yes” has a near infinite number of things you’re saying “no” to.
When you excuse yourself from something, you’re never making the choice to “not choose.” We often think in terms of “do or don’t.” But for everything you say no to, you’re saying yes to something else. You never just “don’t.” You always just “do.”
The power of choice is so strong, you can actually choose to give up choice. You can choose to be enslaved and be run by your circumstances, other people’s wishes, and your own conditioning.
The choice not to choose is choosing to remain a slave to your conditioning. Your circumstances. Your beliefs. Your bullshit.
Yet this is still a choice. You’re always choosing something. The choice not to choose is choosing to be run by your conditioning and circumstances instead of your consciousness.
Do you choose to stop being lived by your life's story and start living your life by your choices?
Why Fight For Excuses And Justifications?
Ask yourself, “Am I defending my limitations? Am I arguing for remaining in my current conditions? Am I so focused on this partial truth that I can’t step back and see a bigger truth?”
Whenever you fight for keeping your limitations, you’re fighting against your liberation. Defending your story is defending your slavery to it.
Defending “I’m a hard worker” forces one into a role of working hard, many times at the expense of relaxation and recovery. Defending “I’m intelligent” forces one into a role of having all the answers at the expense of admitting “I don’t know many things” and embracing uncertainty. Defending “I’m a giver” forces one into a role of giving, many times at the expense of receiving.
So why do we almost all universally do this at times? Why would we argue for a lack of possibilities and live in willful ignorance to our potential greatness?
There could be plenty of good reasons…
You may feel you don’t have a choice in the matter. No one has shown you where a choice exists, and you’ve been conditioned by your upbringing to make assumptions about what is or isn’t possible.
You may feel you do have a choice, but not a desirable one. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You’re making the best possible choice you feel you can even if it’s not ideal. To make a different choice, even for getting something you care about, means you have to sacrifice something you care about more.
The excuse not to take care of yourself can be justified by a need to take care of others. The excuse not to help others can be justified by a need to take care of yourself. The excuse not to take a risk can be justified by a need for safety. The excuse not to be too cautious can be justified by a need to be successful, because you’ll never win by playing “not to lose,” and all choices have risk.
If you’re honest with yourself, you may find whatever you fight for is whatever is meeting your human needs which you’ll learn about in a bit. A need doesn’t have to be selfish as it could be a need to contribute to a greater mission beyond you. You’ll fight for whatever you believe will meet your needs the best. This is a hint at how to escape this trap which you’ll discover in a bit.
Fighting Fire With Fire
Excuses or justifications aren’t necessarily right or wrong until they’re put into context. This means it’s a good thing that you can justify into or excuse yourself out of almost anything, because almost anything can change from good to bad or bad to good, depending on the circumstances.
Since excuses and justifications can be true, at least from one limited perspective, the problem is that most don’t know how to “fight” against truth. It’s not like I can look at my excuses and say, “Wow… I’m totally bullshitting myself because this isn’t true.” The problem is, it is true.
That’s why you can know you have excuses, know they’re not the whole truth, but you still fall for them. You don’t know how to fight against the truth. You can be fully aware you’re self-sabotaging yourself with the nonsense you tell yourself, and yet you still don’t know what to do about it.
So how can you win this battle if your limitations are, by all your logical thinking, absolutely true?
The way to “fight” against truth isn’t to fight it or reject it, but to integrate more truth into the picture. Don’t reject your excuses or justifications. Understand why you have them, and then decide what else you can consider in addition to them.
If Joe told himself, “I do have the money to buy this car,” that would be a lie. He can’t get over his excuse by lying to himself. Joe telling himself that he doesn’t have the money is the truth. He can’t fight against that truth, but he can bring in more truth. “I don’t have the money right now, but are there possibilities I might not have considered for how to get this money? How might I do that? If I don’t know, who can I talk to who might have the answer? What am I willing to do to get this money? Does it matter enough to me to find a way?”
This is simply a taste of how you can escape your excuses. Considering something else. Pretty obvious, right? Hell, you probably already knew this. So will you let pride stop you at “I know this” or choose to dig deeper into this knowledge?
So now, you have a choice…
Knowing that it’s partly a matter of cultivating greater awareness, understanding, and perspective to overcome your limitations, how much will you proactively explore what’s beyond your excuses and justifications?
Are you willing to expand your perspective?
It sounds easy enough, but remember the slingshot…
It’s often said the truth hurts. This is only the case if you’re not living in alignment with it and prefer to justify your current comforts.
In order to slingshot beyond your limitations, consider…
Are you willing to face what’s uncomfortable and downright terrifying for the sake of having more insight and perspective?
Are you willing to see what’s ugly about yourself, others, and the world in order to make it beautiful?
Are you willing to get feedback on your weaknesses, your blind spots, your failures, your inadequacies, your flaws, your mistakes, and other things you’ve been trying to blind yourself to in order to gain awareness of greater truth?
If so, you may choose to escape your limitations. If not, you will choose to remain bound by them.
When making your choices, remember this:
You will eventually face a greater truth, willingly or unwillingly. Those who willingly choose to see a greater truth now are given potential freedom through enlightenment, while those who choose to blind themselves are resigned to slavery through ign
orance.
Bringing Out Your Hidden BS
At this point, you likely have a greater awareness about how you’ve been bullshitting yourself.
If for any reason, you don’t feel like you’re falling into any of these BS traps, that could mean either…
You’re so caught up in your own perspective that you can’t see how it’s limited. In which case, your BS is keeping you from seeing your BS. In reality, it’s your pride keeping you from acknowledging it. I can’t choose for you to let that pride go, only you can. You must pick either pride or your greater potential. Much like a woman is either pregnant or not pregnant, this is one of those situations where either/or thinking is legit.
Or perhaps…
You are totally rocking it in life and doing great at everything, which means you’re not challenging yourself enough, which means you’re actually kind of not totally rocking it and aren’t doing so great because you need to keep challenging yourself to grow, and if you’re not growing, you’re regressing. #NotGonnaLetYouGetAwayWithThatShit
We all fall for BS from time to time because your BS hides in your BS. That is, your bullshit hides in your blind spots. You can expose it when you push your boundaries and try new things – so long as you’re willing to get the lessons from the experience. Challenging yourself may expose your BS, but you can still refuse to see it if you cloud your vision with pride saying “I have nothing new to learn.”
I was at a seminar recently, playing a game that was meant to challenge our creativity. Long story short, I assumed to score the most points in a round, we had to go after the big wins of 25-100 point at a time. Little did I know that there was a highly unconventional way of getting far more points in a round by going after little wins of less than 5 points at a time. After the players all discovered this way, I thought, “Wow! I was so caught up in thinking I have to “go big” to get the most points that I didn’t see I could go for smaller wins faster and do 5x better!”
Break Through Your BS_Uncover Your Brain's Blind Spots and Unleash Your Inner Greatness Page 6
