Why do I make excuses?

It always takes a lot of courage to acknowledge that something needs changing, that you’ve spent the time reflecting and recognised that there is something you need to address. Now the issue which some people face is that they do acknowledge something needs to change however tend to find some way of not implementing the changes they know they need to make. We’ll briefly look over a few, however this isn’t an exhaustive list:

Denial – If you start to tell yourself the issue, ‘isn’t that big of a deal’, ‘it’s not really a problem’ etc despite having already recognised that it is, without realising you’re putting yourself in a position of denial, whereby you’re lying to yourself about the issue which you eventually won’t see as a problem.

Worth – For some individuals, the changes you want to make are tied in with your self-worth whereby you feel you’re not worthy of treating yourself in a positive manner and therefore resist the change you’re trying to implement.

Inconsistency – Change is hard and does take time to ‘stick’, as with anything consistency is key, if you’re trying to implement changes this won’t happen over-night and if you find you stick with the changes for a week or a few days, then the change won’t be sustained. Change takes being patient with yourself as well as awareness to deal with any negative thoughts you have about the change.

Underlying issues – If your issue is driven by an underlying issue that you’re unaware of, you’ll find that despite knowing and understanding the logic behind the change, you’re not able to implement or sustain the change. This is because the underlying issues hasn’t been dealt with. This type of resistance could be caused by several belief systems and usually need to be explored to establish what they are.

You don’t want to change – If you logically know the change is healthy for you and should implement this, this doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be able to implement it. One of the reasons could be although you know logically how it should be, that you don’t want to change and will find excuses not to implement the change. There could be several reasons why you don’t wish to change, which could stem from your past or from an unconscious resistance. This again would need to be explored to establish what the resistance is actually about.

Understanding yourself and the reasons you think and feel a certain way are the first step with dealing with issues and implementing changes.