thats an excuse

There is a reason you’re not getting results…

You lack discipline!

Think about it.

Because you lack discipline, you make excuses. Countless excuses. Often ones you will not even realise you are making.

These past few weeks have been full of passionate conversations - discussions, debates, arguments, call them what you like. Different perspectives, experiences and circumstances of the same topic.

No one experience of a moment is the same as another.

One particular conversation was following a post I shared about distractions…

"Has anyone read Ben Bergeron's book, Chasing Excellence?"

Ben writes about a training weekend he hosts for a group of his top athletes, before Regionals in 2016. At the start of the weekend, he asks each athlete to think of something they really want, or somewhere they'd really like to go. He asks them to print a picture of it and place it on the wall in front of the runner. Something to look at while they suffer. A distraction of sorts.

The next day, every athlete has their picture up.

Everyone except, Mat Fraser. 

Ben asks if he forgot his. Mat says nothing. He walks to the wall with a piece of chalk, and draws a small cross where the picture should be.

He replies - distractions are distractions.

The conversation around me erupted.

"That's easy for him, he didn't have kids."

"Easy for someone who doesn't have to work."

"Yeah but he's the exception."

As expected. Self-justifying. Defensive.

I proposed…

Think about it relatively. It does not suggest quitting your job. It does not suggest failure because you chose to have children. I'm not calling any of you distracted.

Yes, Mat Fraser is the extreme. But there is still a lesson to take from this - a distraction is an excuse! And an excuse is something you create because you don't have the discipline to remove the distraction in the first place. Build the discipline to chase your goal, and you stop needing distractions through the journey.

Think about it like this.

Say you're running a half marathon this year.

Every day, before training, you buy a coffee.

Why? Because it tastes good. Because it gives you a lift.

But coffee is a distraction. It has zero influence as to the success of your goal.

"But it wakes me up."

No. It's an excuse you've built in advance, something to point at if it goes wrong.

"A coffee would've helped me..."

It's an excuse because you don't have the discipline to stay focused on what matters.

Here's a simple test. If you can't explain to a five-year-old how it helps you reach your goal, it isn't helping. It's an excuse.

Mat Fraser won the Crossfit Games that year (2016) and for the following five years consecutively.