Six very good reasons to NOT do stuff that’s good for you.

(And how to call bullshit on yourself.)

 

1: “I’m busy, I don’t have time.”

I break time down into three categories. Note: You are choosing all of them whenever they’re happening.

1. Comfort/fun time. Social, puttering, Facebook, couch time, “down time”, movies, steak and wine.

2. Time spent busying yourself with random tasks or odd jobs for other people. Stuff that is not directly in line with your goals but feels VERY productive.

3. Time spent working on your goals, your dreams, and all the things that are most important to you in your life.

Saying you’re busy is bullshit. Really what you’re saying is “this thing you’re presenting is not important enough to bump category 1, 2, or 3.”

May as well get honest.

To call bullshit on yourself, look at how you’re spending your time. If you’re awake for 18 hours, how many hours are going into each category every day? Can you lose an hour of comfort or odd jobs to improve yourself? I know I could. Getting three stars on all my Candy Crush levels can go on the “to do” list for next month.

 

2: “It’s too expensive.”

If I offered to sell you a giant, beautiful, modern house with a pool in Point Grey for $3,000 would it be too expensive?

What if I offered to sell you my old scratched up Finding Nemo DVD for $3,000?

Really, it has nothing to do with money. It’s all about the value of the thing and what you’ll get for your money.

If you’re telling me my product is too expensive, either:

I failed to show you how the product will improve your life,

You haven’t figured out how the product will improve your life,

You just don’t need it because your life doesn’t need improving in that way,

You aren’t earning enough money to get things that are good for you.

To call bullshit on yourself, think about what’s important to you in your life and figure out whether the product will help you or not. Then just get honest and say “I’m not seeing how your product will improve my life” or “nice product, I don’t need it for what I am doing.”

And you can always make more money by selling your current skills to a higher bidder or learning new skills to earn more money. This is where an investment in yourself can be scary and seem counter intuitive if you can’t conveniently afford it. In my experience it always works out very well when coupled with hard work.

 

3: “Things are fine as they are” or “I’m fine.”

“Fine” is the language of settling and coping.

Built into the word “fine” is a bit of good and a bit of inconvenient / unpleasant, with a commitment to stay there. Otherwise, people would be saying “things are GREAT and I wouldn’t change a damn thing!”

Same goes here – just get more honest. “Some things are good and some are bad, but the bad things aren’t worth changing right now so I’m happy coping.”

To call bullshit on yourself, take careful inventory of the thing that is “fine” and make more precise distinctions. How much time, money, and effort are the inconvenient parts wasting every day/week/month? IE: If you’re wasting 20 seconds every waking hour with an iPhone that’s slow with texting, it’s 42 minutes a week and almost 3 hours a month spent waiting (and annoyed).

 

4: “I’ll make time next month ‘when things calm down.'”

Yeah right. We both know next month you’ll be just as busy as you are now if not more so. You like being busy.  😉

It’s actually iCal that fools people. When you look at next month in your iCal and it looks empty (like a wide open field of lush green grass and dandelions), it’s tempting to think you’ll have all the free time in the world.

But… it’s a TRICK!!! You’re failing to recognize that when you get there you’ll be filling every waking hour with stuff and you’re back to “busy”. Except you have one month less to spend on category 3 items in your lifetime.

To call bullshit on yourself, think about your life more macro. We both know time flies if you don’t pay close attention. Take a moment to take stock of what’s most important to you.Think about what you would feel best about having done when you’re at the end of your life.

Then just cancel some appointments this week to have more time with loved ones and a good book in a hammock. With merlot.

 

5: “I don’t want anyone to think I’m dumb/weak/inept.”

This is very human and comes from when we’re kids… We all want to appear smart, capable, and totally on top of everything – always. As kids, bad things happened if we weren’t.

We want to be good at stuff without doing the work to get there.

Sadly, this is not how reality works. Every single thing you want to do well takes practice. All the things you’re good at now, I guarantee you sucked at them at some point.

This particular strategy creates a kind of self-imprisonment. You don’t want anyone seeing you’re limited so you never practice, and you never get to experience new things. You never get to feel that amazing feeling of mastering something new (like getting three stars on really challenging Candy Crush levels.)

To call bullshit on yourself, just recognize the real issue. You’re limiting your own experience of life because you’re worried someone will see you struggling. Is that really how you want to live?

Then find mentors who are compassionate and meet you where you’re at. Mentors who have been where you are now and who get it. When you fall down just get up, dust off your knees, and try again.

 

6: “It should be simple.”

All the best products in the world are marketed as being “simple.” Simple this, simple that, it’s simple. A child could do it. You should be able to do it with your eyes closed.

The problem is nothing is simple until you understand it and you know how to do it. Until that moment it’s the most complex thing in the world. This leads to severe procrastination because people don’t want to face the reality that they can’t do simple things “children should be able to do.”

Granted, if something is actually simple you’ll pick it up much faster and more easily once you understand its principles – but getting to that point of understanding can take some guidance.

To call bullshit on yourself, just recognize that simple is a nice-sounding myth until you know how to do it. You might not *experience* it as simple in the beginning. Either take the time to Google it and tinker or else eat some humble pie and call a friend.

 

(BONUS) 7: “I need more info before I can make my decision.”

My good friend Stephen pointed this one out after I submitted this post. Thank you!

The idea here is that you need to get a little more info, have a few more questions answered, Google some reviews, hear more testimonials… And on and on… Before you KNOW it will be the RIGHT decision for you. Without having tried the product.

This creates a kind of analysis paralysis – you can’t make a decision without getting more info and the info you need in order to make the decision can only come from actually trying the thing yourself. You just think that more information will help you make the decision, when all it does is slow you down and waste time.

There will always be a certain amount of risk and blind faith in trying something new. Life is all about that. The alternative is living on the sidelines of life spending all your time worrying and Googling while other people do fun and interesting stuff.

To call bullshit on yourself, catch yourself in this pattern before you lose several hours in a rabbit hole of Googling and asking questions. Look at the data that you have from personal experience versus data from other less trusted sources. Do you trust the person who is recommending this to you? Why do you trust that person? How long have you known them? Do you think they would recommend something crappy for you?

Think about the most successful people in the world. Richard Branson, the late Steve Jobs, Elon Musk… Successful people make good decisions quickly and powerfully based on the data they know they have. The rest is a gamble. I bet Henry Ford didn’t stay up all night Googling to see if people will like the idea of the car, and to make sure he was doing the “right thing.”