There's always going to be something

You’ve tweaked your back and now you can’t workout.

You’ve got two kids under 3 and now every time someone asks you to hang out you can’t because you’re tired.

You can’t go to all the events that arise at the end of the year because life happens and for some reason the end of this year has more surprises than last.

One of your parents is sick so you can’t move overseas because you want to be close to them.

Your car breaks down and you miss that meeting you were banking on.

The approval permit for your next project arrives two weeks late and pushes everything back a month.

The extra part you ordered arrives broken and doesn’t work so you have to order another one.

Cooking a meal of whole foods takes 45 minutes versus eating the pre-packaged stuff takes 10.

You forgot to do something someone told you about and it throws their timeline off.

There’s always going to be something.

But don’t let the somethings creep into your identity.

An excuse is not dangerous until it turns absolute.

Build up enough somethings and all of a sudden the thing you really wanted fades into the background.

There are plenty of times where there’s a hard block on where you’d like to go and what you’d like to do.

Though hard blocks tend not to last forever.

You can clear them with effort.

Or you can clear them with psychology.

Got a tweaked back?

Good, more time to figure out recovery options and create a training plan to prevent it in the future.

Short on time to cook a healthy meal when you’re trying to eat better?

Good, an opportunity to skip a meal, tell yourself it’s okay to be hungry for a while and take some time to plan the next few days of meals.

The extra part you ordered arrives broken?

Good, an opportunity to figure out a workaround or work on something else in the meantime.

Once something becomes an always event, it’s no longer an excuse.

As in, once you have children, they will always be there, there’s no opposite. So it’s no longer an excuse, they’re very much part of you now.

If you’ve forgotten something someone told you and then they ask you about it, you can’t change the forgetfulness.

But you can say…

That’s my bad, I did forget and I’m sorry, let me fix it.

Most things we get caught in knots about aren’t as important or timely as we make them out to be.

Sure there are due dates and schedules to adhere to, painful at times but they exist for a reason.

You can come at it from two angles.

On one hand, there’s always going to be something so dedicate your best efforts as soon and as often as you can.

On the other hand, there’s no rush because there’s no time limit.

On the third hand, you can combine these two.

There’s always going to be something so you persist in your endeavours yet you’re not in a hurry for them to be done.

After all, nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

You’re going to make it but it will often not feel that way.

That’s the fun part!

You pour your heart into the art piece you’re working on but you know there’s know finish line, it’ll be finished when it’s finished.

You spend time with and take care of your sick parent but you know no relationship is perfect and there never will be enough time for everything and one day you’ll miss the small inconveniences of today. So you do your best to be present and patient.

You call your friend to catch up on life while cleaning up the kitchen after three days of two kids being sick and no chores being done.

You forgot to put the thing in your car for the person who asked you to bring it the next day so the next day you personally deliver it to them.

Ahhh the red thread reveals itself.

Let me explain.

Think about the times you’ve been wronged by a company, person or service or gotten the wrong meal at a restaurant.

No one’s perfect, sure.

But how did the experience feel when the company, person, service or restaurant followed up and graciously corrected their mistake?

I’d argue the follow up and correct often gives a better experience than if it had been right the first time.

Why?

Because human recognises human.

And being able to recognize a mistake and self-correct is perhaps the most human trait of all.

We’re well aware of our own flaws and how we try to rectify them.

So when someone else does it, we feel it.

A beautiful push and pull.

There’s always going to be something.

An error, a mistake, an issue, an excuse, a roadblock, a forgotten promise.

And you can let it hold you back or you can accept it let it make you better.