3941: How to Stop Using Excuses and Make Conscious Choices Instead by Ellen Burgan of If It Brings You Joy

0:00Spring starts at the Home Depot and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300, like the next grill for Burner Gas Grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go-to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply to Home Depot.com slash price match for details. Marvel Television's Wonder Man and eight episode series. Now streaming on Disney Plus. A superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar-winning director. Simon Williams, audition for Wonder Man. I'm going to need you to sign this. Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'm never worthy of anyone for all now. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming only on Disney Plus.

1:00This is Optimal Living Daily. How to stop using excuses and make conscious choices instead. By Ellen Bergen of If It Brings You Joy.com. And I'm Justin Malik, the guy who reads articles, book excerpts, and more to you every day including holidays. It's always with permission from the authors or websites. We couldn't do that without them or you, so thank you to them and you for being here. And I'll get right to our post today and start optimizing your life. How to stop using excuses and make conscious choices instead. By Ellen Bergen of If It Brings You Joy.com. Contrary to how society has made being busy seem honorable and like a virtue. I see it more often used as an excuse. Let me explain what I consider to be two very different types of busy. The first is consciously choosing to accomplish lots of things to achieve a goal. And this type of busy is productive.

2:01The process of taking each strategic step on your way to your goal feels good because the choice to take those actions is based in freedom. Some of those steps are likely out of your comfort zone, so although they feel uncomfortable, the personal growth and sense of accomplishment with those types of steps feels amazing and grows your confidence. On the other hand, there's using busy as an excuse. I'll call this fear-based behavior busyness. And it is very different from consciously taking lots of steps to accomplish a goal. Some people even pride themselves on being so busy and they use busy as a badge of honor, which it is not. Being busy does not make a person more important than anyone else. And by no means is being busy, a sure sign of success, nor worthiness. Using busyness or being too busy is the type of busy or excuse that the remainder of this pose will dive into. Frankly, it's an unhealthy habit that can steal our power, confidence, and joy.

3:06Awareness is it an excuse or reason? It can be hard to separate between a freedom-based reason and a fear-based excuse. The distinction I learned based on my work at the Fearless Living Institute is, excuses take a fact and spin a story, a motion and drama around it. They feel real, yet usually there is regret behind an excuse. The reasons are factual. When you make a decision based on reason, you'll feel at peace with it and won't wonder, what if? Awareness is such an important first step in recognizing what we think is a reason we do or don't do something, but is often really an excuse that is rooted in fear. What does fear have to do with excuses? We all have things that we say to ourselves that excuse us from taking that next step. We rationalize that we're too busy, too tired. Our partner isn't supportive, we don't have enough money, etc.

4:06These things feel so true because there is a seed of truth in every excuse. Excuses are one of the ways fear keeps us from thriving. It uses seed of truth and past evidence to keep us stuck in our comfort zone. Fear convinces us that we're too tired, too broke, too untrained, too busy, or too whatever, so that we never plan and commit to taking that next step toward our goal, our potential. How to stop using excuses? How do you shift out of excuses so that you can feel empowered to achieve your goals and dreams? Shift from an excuse to a place of choice and empowerment. We've all been there spinning aimlessly rather than slowing down and mindfully choosing what we want to do next. For example, using the I'm too busy excuse to get out of going to a social event when the real reason is that you feel exhausted. Own up to feeling exhausted and consciously choose to not go to the event so you can take time to rest and recharge and release the guilt for doing so.

5:10Believing your excuses takes away your personal responsibility, your power. Instead, take responsibility for your life by making new, conscious choices. Be honest with yourself. In order to make new choices that better align with what you want for your life, you need to be honest with yourself. Three truths of what too busy might really mean. Number one, you feel depleted, exhausted. How often do you say things like, I wish I could sit and read a book, but I'm too busy. Take a day off? Nope, I'm too busy. Or, I'm too busy to do that thing I really want to do for myself. Possibly the real reason isn't that you're too busy. Rather, did you ignore your own needs for the sake of your family or career and now feel overwhelmed and tired? Choose to take well deserved and needed self-care time. Self-care is a necessity in order to feel rested and man ready to cheerfully help others.

6:11Be honest with yourself, you're not too busy. Instead, you have a need for time to rest and recharge. Number two, you made a different choice. Be honest, you made a choice to not work out or clean the house. You were not too busy. Did you need downtime? Were you avoiding what you didn't want to do? Did you spend hours playing games on your phone, binging a Netflix series or scrolling through awesome accounts on Instagram? Shameless plug to connect with me? Whatever the reason, be mindful and call it what it is rather than using I'm too busy as an excuse. Remember, the goal is to shift from an excuse to a place of choice and empowerment. And number three, fear of failure. If you're feeling overwhelmed or scared of failing, don't blame it on being too busy. Identify your real feelings and move toward a solution rather than spinning in busyness.

7:11Have the courage to ask for help from your circle of support. One last thought. As you work to become aware of your excuses and shifting them to choice, be sure to give yourself lots of compassion. When you're in overwhelmed or feeling exhausted, talk to yourself as you talk to a good friend. Self-compassion can help you keep your inner critic quiet. Using I'm too busy as an excuse or a badge of honor, steals your power, confidence and joy. Take your power back by making conscious choices based on reasons, not excuses. You just listen to the post titled, how to stop using excuses and make conscious choices instead by Ellen Bergen of if it brings you joy.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Before we start, I want to share a super powerful practice I use called NSDR or non-sleep deep rest. In just about 10 minutes or so, this yoga ninja practice leaves you feeling as refreshed as after a nap without actually sleeping.

8:16Experience it for yourself on our guided podcast. Search NSDR and look for the one from Optimal Living Daily. Take it to Ellen. When we talk about busyness with productivity on this show, I'm often reminded of a post I narrated way back on episode 73 when this podcast was only around two months old. Joshua Milburn of The Minimulus has a shorter article titled Not Busy Focused. And his argument is pretty similar to what we heard today at the beginning of Ellen's article. Often busy is just an excuse, even though some see it as a badge of honor. And we can possibly eliminate the word busy from our vocabulary altogether. Instead, we should be using the word Focused because that's basically the positive side of busy when being busy is actually productive. The other side being busy just for the sake of not doing nothing, let's just spinning our wheels going nowhere fast. And I get it, not being busy can be seen as lazy and unproductive.

9:19We can actually instill anger in someone else to know that you're not busy. But hopefully you know from listening to this show that needing to be busy all the time can not only be unhelpful but possibly harmful. Doing nothing is a wonderful thing. And from a meditation and mindfulness point of view, it's actually kind of impossible. But just slowing down can lead to amazing progress. So as Ellen said, a good step to start with is simply being honest with yourself. You can ask yourself some of the things she mentioned in this post. And hopefully it'll lead you to a better place. And with that, thank you for being here in this place with me. It really means a lot. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.