Hello and Happy New Year friends!
It's been a few weeks since I've visited your inbox and I surely have missed writing to you. I took a little time to prepare mentally for what I'm declaring to be a year of "No Excuses!"
I think that we often rely on excuses to make us feel better about ourselves when we fail to live up to our expectations.
As I reflected on 2016 and started planning out my calendar for the New Year, I discovered that the only thing keeping me from reaching my highest potential is making excuses. Often when I make excuses for not sticking to my goal, I actually have a very good reason for not following through. Life throws me a lot of curve balls.
Maybe you can relate. Do you find yourself feeling completely okay with using excuses? Do you often have a good reason for aborting your mission?
I would love to invite you to walk this "No Excuses" year together with me. Let’s mindfully stick to our goals with this mantra: “by any means necessary.” I'm confident that you will have many opportunities to practice this “No Excuses” just by having an awareness of not letting obstacles impede your path. I laugh as I type this because just today I had a good excuse to abandon my plan for the day and feel justified in relying on an excuse.
The day started off great. I wrote out my "To Do" list last night, and woke up this morning pumped and ready to go. I got up early and had my quiet time, got my son ready for school, cooked breakfast and spent a few minutes eating and talking and playing with my son before school. We then headed out for school. As I approached the school, I noticed that there was not a single car in the parking lot. Not one! After parking I checked my older emails and realized that the school was closed for the New Year. I was flustered and a little upset with myself because I'm usually on top of all things calendar-related. I had a jam-packed schedule planned for the day, which included a workout class that was starting in fifteen minutes and several coaching items later in the afternoon. As I got ready to head home and just call it a day, I remembered “No Excuses!” This small reminder helped me to quickly switch my thinking from "Oh well I tried.'" to "Oh no! I am working out today by any means necessary." I then remembered that my workout center provides free child care. I have never had to use it before, but I decided to go ahead and try it. When I got to the drop off center, I found another mom outside waiting for the childcare workers. We confirmed that it was supposed to be open but no one had showed up. Again I could have given up on sticking to my goal of exercising, but I went home and did a workout tape instead. Then I rearranged the rest of my schedule to adjust for my son being home from school, pushing tasks like this blog post to later in the evening when I could have uninterrupted time.
Friends, life will never go completely as planned. Looking at my day, it’s easy to see how a small disruption can cause us to quickly abandon our goals, giving up on what we have set out to do. There will always be obstacles and detours, but what you decide to do in those moments is what separates the average from the greats.
Will this be the year that you push past the resistance to get where you want to be? Join me this year in saying “No Excuses!” It’s going to be a great year!
Until next time my friend,
Tiffany
P.S I loved spending the day with my little 3 year old sidekick. He even joined me in doing my workout. I so wished I could have got a picture to share with you of him attempting to do pushups and burpees. Funniest thing ever!