16 excuses that break my routine

(And my strategies for dealing with them)

routine definition

Here I am yet again trying to get back on a routine that I know will ensure I can achieve my goals. This time I have found myself digging really deep into why I keep getting off track and I am frankly sick and tired of the difficult process of getting back on track.

Ok, I used the word “excuse” but these can be, a lot of times, legit reasons that I have no control over.

This time I decided to make a list of reasons I get off track and have a strategy to deal with them when they inevitably come up, for now multiple times per day. While your reasons and strategies might be different, I’m already seeing the benefits and getting back on track feels easier than before.

There is no particular order to the list below. All are equally capable of screwing me up. Some sections are redacted because they are too personal.

1. I feel sick.

Like actually, seriously I’m not well.

Strategy:

• Drink some water
• Lay down
• Get some rest
• If it’s chronic, see a doctor.

2. I’m anxious at night.

This will keep me up which works against my goal to wake up early. Once I don’t wake up early, my whole day and routine is basically wrecked and really difficult to recover from.

Strategy:

• Take some melatonin, sleep aid, whatever
• Just lay down. I’ll fall asleep eventually and probably much sooner than if I start binge watching some random crap on Amazon Prime, Netflix, or whatever.

Update: 6/14/2021

I had this problem last night and I didn’t follow part of my strategy. So now I’m currently employing strategies for problems 3, 6, 8,10, & 11. This update is part of strategy for #8. I decided that “anxiety” is an oversimplification so I’m going to break this one up into 2 sections.

Reason 1: Tomorrow is Monday

I am mourning the end of the weekend. Who doesn’t? In this case though, staying up later is part of my rebellious resistance to the passage of time. I try to extend my freedom by staying up later. Some refer to this as the Sunday syndrome.

Strategy:

• Accept that I am sad the weekend is over
• Don’t judge myself for wanting the weekend to last longer
• Believe that I can enjoy weekdays as much as weekends, but in a different way
• Write down the list of things I’m a looking forward to doing during the week
• Believe that I cannot fight time
• Be happy for the time I had instead of the time that I did not have
• If I really have enough willpower to fight the passage of time, use that willpower to overcome my bad habit of watching TV by substituting it for reading instead. (keeping a boring book next to bed helps)

Reason 2: I’m afraid of not sleeping

Officially this is referred to as Somniphobia which has a couple different types: 1. Fear of being asleep. 2. Fear of not being asleep

For me I fall into the second category. Because I know important going to sleep on time is, I realized that I often get afraid of not sleeping when I am not sleepy. This actually makes the problem even worse. This is why I try to do things that I previously believed make me sleepy, the worst offender is watching a boring movie. I learned last night this does not make me sleepy. I don’t think it keeps me up either. I do believe that prevents me from trying something else that might make me sleep.

Strategy:

• Realize that I am afraid of staying awake
• Do not judge myself for being afraid of staying awake
• Lay down in bed even if I will be awake
• Mentally catalog the things I did have done well. I believe this will help me have increased confidence that I can fall asleep. For me inability to fall asleep is caused partially by an insecurity about my achievements and general progress in life. Fear of not being able to fall asleep is in part a fear of failing. When I subconsciously start to doubt that I can be successful in general, I doubt I can do something as “simple” as falling asleep right on time.

3. I’m super tired in the morning

I already had a cup of coffee, maybe 2 and the neurons in my brain are just like, “fuck you, I’m sleeping even if you’re not.”

Strategy:

• Just power through it
• Believe that this tiredness won’t last forever.
• Make dinner before picking up my daughter
• Go to bed as early as possible

4. I’m too tired to prepare for the next day

A little bit of preparation is required for me to be successful the next day. The main one being to put a cup of coffee or pre-workout next to my bed so when my alarm goes off, I can just chug it. This helps prevent me from sleeping in. Sometimes I’m so freaking tired that doing this 1 small thing even is extremely difficult.

Strategy:

• Get the next day ready before starting work or during lunch
• Basically try to anticipate my energy level being low before its so low that I have almost no chance of preparing for the next day.

5. I’m afraid of how much work needs to be done to achieve my goals

Sometimes I sit down with a time block set aside for me to work on my company TimeRocket and I just feel overwhelmed with the sheer volume of work ahead of me.

Strategy:

• Schedule some time to spend with family. This one might not make sense unless you knew that one of my fears in building my own company is that I will have to sacrifice time with my family to do so. While technically it is true that I have to sacrifice time with my family to build my business, I believe I can strike a balance. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. When I’m feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work ahead of me, for me, it’s probably closer to say I’m afraid of how much time I’m going to have to spend away from my family to achieve my goals. Scheduling time to spend with my family helps me alleviate that fear.

6. Can’t get out of bed. Sooo tired. zzZZ

Strategy:

• Wake the fuck up! Like just fuck all. Nothing matters just get up and figure out what to do about being tired later.
• Plan to go to bed early that day
• Look forward to sleeping early today

7. Damn this is boring

My routine is becoming routine. Great! I’m winning! But also this is so freaking boring!

Strategy:

• Make a small change that won’t break the routine but will break the feeling of the thing being overly repetitive.
• Applies also to working out. Working out can become so, so boring.

8. I’m ignoring my routine right this very moment. Why am I doing this!?

It’s like I consciously decide to do something outside of my routine and I don’t even make an excuse. I just do it.

Strategy:

• Try to understand why I did it. Mediate on it
• Create a strategy for dealing with the reason why

9. I’m afraid of getting injured during my workout

At my age this is very real. I have got injured many times. But now it’s like just the fear of getting injured discourages me from working out. Admittedly though 99% of the time I get injured it’s because I’m trying to force results faster than they should be coming. That’s on me, and I can prevent it.

Strategy:

• Take it easy
• Be patient with the process
• Believe that consistency is a more reliable way to get results than pushing harder today

10. I’m tired of being tired / I’m afraid of being tired

In the beginning of a new workout routine, a lot of people, I think are going to feel tired, maybe all day long, for the first 3–6 weeks. This very idea discourages me from getting to the point where I’m no longer tired and I have more energy because I have been exercising daily. It’s a vicious cycle that can be broken.

Strategy:

• Look forward to sleeping in on Sunday, my no-wake up early day
• Believe being tired will not last forever
• Think about all the [redacted] I will get with a [redacted]

11. I woke up late

Despite my best efforts it’s now way past the time at which I intended to wake up.

Strategy:

• Wherever I’m at in my schedule just do that
• Basically skip as much as is practically possible that I planned to do during the time I was sleeping

Update: 6/16/2021

I have found that maintaining at least 20 minutes of exercise even in the event of waking up late past the time block scheduled for exercise, is vital to maintaining energy levels required to continue all other aspects of my routine. Therefore, I do not skip exercise entirely if I wake up late.

12. I’m too tired to work on my goals.

So I somehow woke up on time, made it through my workout, got ready and I’m sitting at my desk ready to work on my startup, but my brain is just like “what. where am I? what am I supposed to be doing? who am I? why am I?” Basically I have no actual ability to doing anything useful or productive because I’m actually too tired and no motivational speech to myself or cups of coffee is going to fix it.

Strategy:

• Instead of doing something that requires creative brain effort, do something that is slightly engaging and helps me indirectly achieve my goals
• Listen to an audiobook or a motivational speech. Will Smith! Yeah! This won’t help right now but is ammunition for tomorrow.

13. I’m too tired to finish my workout

I started my workout but it’s been 5 mins or x minutes and I’m just dead tired. I can barely get my eye lids to lift themselves up let alone my biceps!

Strategy:

• Switch to something really low intensity like low restriction rowing or even walking.
• Just keep my body moving
• Eat more food today so tomorrow I don’t have the same problem.

14. I don’t have time or energy to cook. Also my macros suck!

If I don’t eat enough I wont’ have energy for my workout. Preparing 3,500 calories of meals / day is an insane amount of work even if I keep it super simple. And the simpler I keep it the more I start to loath my meals each day. Eventually I start eating less and I end up with excuse #13.

Strategy:

• This one might not be helpful for you but at my current stage in life / financial situation I can actually afford to subscribe to a prepared meal service. They deliver 12 meals / week to my front door and all I have to do is put them in the microwave (or not).
• I literally have no other ideas on how to solve this other than dedicating a full day on the weekend to preparing meals for the week. For me that is a non-starter because the weekend is where I get most of my work on my goals done.
• During the week I am most likely just going to be too tired to prepare 3,500 calories of food each day. This just wouldn’t work for me at all.

Update 8/7/2021

I tried a few things and I finally landed on quality frozen dinners. The meal services usually just come as frozen meals shipped in a styrofoam box 3 days ago. You’ll get better quality for a lower cost by choosing quality frozen meals.

15. I’m either depressed or just mentally tired

Either there is something going on my life that is causing me to be unhappy or I have just been pushing hard for so long that I am like brain dead. My creativity is vanished or I just feel demotivated to do anything at all. Probably good examples of burnout symptoms.

This one is hard for me but I’ve come to realize that if I don’t take time off when I’m completely tired, I’m going to get off track again and be writing this article all over. The net result is much worse than a day or even a few days not working towards my goals.

Strategy:

• Spend some time away from work, goals, and electronics in general.
• Spend some time with family and friends in a non-work context.
• Watching random videos on the internet or similar does not actually help me. I need to be completely away from electronics.

16. I’m so excited to do my to-do list, I abandon my routine.

This one might seem funny but it happens to me all the time. I get so excited about tearing up my to do list that I completely wreck my routine. This leads to imbalance that is not sustainable pretty quickly and I inevitably end up accomplishing less than if I would have worked on my to-do list in the time that was already allocated for it on a consistent basis.

Strategy:

• Write it down, but don’t do it.
• No matter how trivial the thing is that I want to do, write it down first. This goes against the GTD methodology but I get so distracted so easily that doing something that takes me 30 seconds can start me off on a wild tangent. Basically I’m training myself to do things that aren’t written down and when I’m doing that there is no limit to what my mind can come up with. If I have to write it down first it’s probably worth doing, even if it takes 30 seconds to write it down and 15 seconds to do.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to deal with your excuses before they come up. And if you’re not convinced that having a strategy beforehand is essential, well I’ll see you back here on this article when you inevitably get off track again.

I’m not promising this list is complete and it most likely isn’t so I’ll be updating it as I find new “excuses.”

Additions:

Update 6/22/2021

17. Internet trolls and/or social media in general

Obviously trolls aren’t worth our time but I admit I got snagged by one today. As soon as I woke up I saw the comment and it ate 75% of my workout time. Even if they aren’t a troll and just nicely responding it is probably wise to allocate and limit time spent on social media.

Strategy:

• Believe that the comments aren’t going anywhere
• Prioritize myself over them. Maybe selfish but the best way I can help others is by taking care of myself first.
• Make a special social media to-do list that can be revisited at a pre-planned time block.