Knocking Down All the Excuses
If You Have Time for X, You Definitely Have Time for Y

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #531: Knocking Down All the Excuses: If You Have Time for X, You Definitely Have Time for Y

Jeff Sanders
I had an epiphany recently that I had not read a physical book in months, maybe even a whole year.

I used to read physical books every night.

I switched to audiobooks to save time but never really re-evaluated my routine.

Yes, I had time to read but I was making other, less productive and less fulfilling choices.

Now you can do the same thing, make that same switch.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode number 531.

Knocking down all the excuses.

If you have time for X, you definitely have time for Y.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down the common excuses we tell ourselves about our bad habits, unfulfilled dreams and missed opportunities.

Also what it takes to overcome the most insidious of habits and the power of the compound effect over time when you make better, even tiny choices today and most days going forward.

Let's dig in.

So my tendency in the last, let's call it 12-18 months, is essentially to waste my time at night.

Which is really unfortunate because I basically teach this stuff.

So I have fallen into the trap that I try to get myself out of all the time, which ultimately comes down to a lack of intentionality and lack of a plan.

I'll be more specific here.

My evening hours are an opportunity to get more value out of time that I tend to waste.

If I choose to stay up late, watch TV, drink a glass of wine or two, scroll through social media, or ultimately just choose any activity that doesn't really have any direct and tangible value, I have wasted 1, 2, maybe even 3 hours in the evening.

Now what if we made some changes?

What if instead of that routine, something was a little different?

Something tweaked in just a small way, but it could have profound benefits and changes that are not crazy.

They're not extreme, but they're wildly effective.

So my mission, generally speaking, with the 5am miracle is to pivot those evening hours and move them to the morning.

So if I went to bed one hour earlier and then woke up one hour earlier and then use that new one hour in the morning for something productive, anything, fitness, reading, planning, goal achievement, you name it, fill in the blank, do something that means something to you, and you did it in that hour.

It can change your life.

Now if you are wasting 2 hours at night and you have 2 hours in the morning, imagine the possibilities here.

This just adds up depending on how your life is currently structured.

The point here is not to destroy your evenings and go to bed at 6pm.

That's not the intention.

The goal is to assess where is time being wasted that could, with a small change, actually be utilized in a more effective way to provide the kinds of benefits you know are possible with the 24 hours you have each and every day.

Because the time is already there and moving even one hour from the evening to the morning makes a huge difference in your day.

Honestly, if you have time for nonsense at night, you definitely have time for something productive in the morning.

To the point of the title of the episode this week, if you have time for X, you definitely have time for Y.

So I want to go through a few of the common excuses we tell ourselves about those bad habits, about our unfulfilled dreams, about those opportunities that we miss because we have these just structural, routine, nonsensical choices that were made at some point that are backfiring.

They're not working for us.

They're working against us and we know it.

And if we can change even small things, little tweaks to prevent that kind of missed opportunity, imagine what's possible.

So let's get to those excuses.

Excuse number one, I can do that tomorrow.

Yeah, I've heard that one before.

That's probably one of the most, if not the most common thing to possibly say about anything that you want from your life.

You'll, I don't have time today, but I could do that tomorrow.

I could do that next week, next month, next quarter.

I could do that after fill in the blank.

Postponing your future is not the answer to your problems.

If you don't do it today, you're not going to do it tomorrow.

Straight up.

That's a fact.

If you don't make some effort today, why would tomorrow be any different?

This is the challenge that I have posed to myself recently when I have spent some time being very explicit, very direct with myself.

I made a list.

I wrote it down.

Here are the things that I want to see from my life, from my business, from my family in the next five, 10 years.

And then I looked at that list and realized all of these things I could have taken action on 10 years ago, but I didn't.

Or I only kind of, sort of did.

It wasn't intentional.

It wasn't planned.

This excuse of I can do that tomorrow just showed up again and again and again.

And ultimately the, I can do that tomorrow reality is I can make another excuse tomorrow.

I can find some other rationale why I can't fulfill my dream tomorrow.

When tomorrow shows up, I'll have another rational reason, excuse lined up to prevent me from doing the thing I know I should be doing.

If you want to change your life, this excuse has to go.

If you want your dream fulfilled, you want your goal accomplished, you want that thing to happen.

You're going to have to make a sacrifice today, literally today.

And if you don't do that, even five minutes of your life committed to that goal in some capacity, why would tomorrow be any different?

If you can't answer that question about exactly why tomorrow is different, you know that this is going to apply to you.

You know that the change has to take place today.

And yes, just five minutes.

I told a story in the podcast recently about how back in college, I came back from a study abroad trip and committed to five minutes a day of running on a treadmill.

That was it.

Five minutes a day.

And that scaled to five miles a day in just a few months.

That's where change happens in the five minutes, not the five miles, not just an effect of long-term habit change, but the real change, the one that matters was the five minutes.

That's what this is.

If I can do a five minute walk or run today, and I definitely can, well then tomorrow I can do the same thing and maybe walk or run a little further, maybe push my goals ahead even more.

So yeah, my new excuse is I can only do five minutes.

Flip it around.

I can only do five, so I'll guarantee those first five.

And the next day, I can only do 10, but I'll guarantee those 10.

You've turned an excuse into an action step, into a I only have time for blank, which means I'm definitely going to do that thing.

And then when that happens, the progress begins to add up.

So flip that excuse on its head.

I can do that tomorrow and I will, and here's how it's going to look, and here's the specifics to guarantee it happens.

Here are all the distractions that would pull me away, and here's how I've addressed those.

Here's the guaranteed location, guaranteed time, guaranteed resources.

Here's my list of how I will ensure this happens.

Flip the script.

Guarantee your success.

Common excuse number two.

This one instance won't make a long-term difference.

Okay, this is actually true.

A single instance of a habit by itself means almost nothing, but of course, compounded over time, it's incredible.

It's a magical amount of growth over time.

So yeah, a single five-minute workout means almost nothing.

A single salad for lunch means almost nothing.

But of course, if you ate a salad for lunch every single day for a year, that could be life-changing for your diet and your health.

If you ran for five minutes a day every single day and scaled that over time, it will change your physicality.

Yes, the compound effect matters here.

The one instance, the single individual choice, it is by itself kind of pointless.

But the transformation, the switch, the realization that this one thing is one of many, and this habit, this commitment over time of one more and one more and one more, that's the rhythm.

That's the progress.

That's where all of the magic happens, is one more.

Not one singular, but one more added on to the list.

Then all of a sudden, you are building something.

You're creating something.

You are establishing a rhythm, a routine, and this snowball effect that kicks in and changes your life.

So if you have this excuse of, "I just, you know, this one thing, I just, I don't, I'm not committed to it because it's just one," well, let that go.

Because it's just one more.

One more on the list.

One more day.

One more trip to the gym.

One more salad.

And that adds up in a big way.

Common excuse number three, "I'm too tired."

Okay, this is a hard one.

It's a hard one because I feel it.

Oh man.

Like I said before, this podcast, you know, being the father of two young girls and having to manage, you know, the business and the health goals and the life and the family, I'm in a season of my life where tiredness, fatigue, exhaustion is my middle name.

It's just every single day is a challenge to, "Okay, here we go.

I got this.

I got this."

But the thing is that I do have this.

This is happening.

It is working.

And the excuse of, "I'm too tired," is really an acknowledgement of there has to be a shift in priorities.

Yes, more sleep is going to help big time.

Yes, more breaks and more margin will help in a big way.

But ultimately, being too tired is probably an acknowledgement that you're taking on more than you have time for.

The big challenge, the big change that takes place when you reach a season of life where you are worn down, you are stressed, you are tired, you are fatigued.

The only rational response to that is a reduction in activities, a deletion of every possible thing you could imagine to simplify the calendar, simplify the schedule, and get to a place where you look at what's coming up and you say, "I've got this.

I can do that.

That's manageable.

I've significantly underplanned my calendar, so I have margin built in and guaranteed.

I have the free time I need, the sleep that I need, the recovery time in the gym or sauna that I need.

I have what I need.

It's there.

I still have to follow through and execute on that plan, but the plan is there and the plan makes sense because I've thought it through.

So my mission, whenever I feel this sense of, "Yes, I'm too tired.

Yes, I'm beat up.

Yes, I've been sick.

Yes, things are hard."

Okay, we can acknowledge reality and yes, that may be true, but there are things you can do about the fact that you're tired, stressed, fatigued, worn down.

There are actual tangible steps you can take to directly address that emotional and physical feeling and then also have a schedule long-term that prevents that and that encourages you to do the kinds of things that provide more energy, more power, more control.

And then that excuse of, "I'm too tired," it fades away.

It may take some time to get there, but it will fade away.

Because you're going to feel better.

You have a plan and the plan is working.

Common excuse number four, "This isn't a good time for me."

Okay, I know this one.

I've personally experienced this one.

This is to a certain degree what I was just talking about of a season of life.

This season isn't a good time.

This current lifestyle isn't my norm.

It's just what's happening right now.

Now, there's two ways to approach this.

The first is that it's actually true that this current season is temporary.

That this is actually not a good time for the thing you're trying to do and that things are going to be shifting and changing very soon.

And then when it does, you can work on this next big project.

The problem with that is it's probably not true.

It's probably not the case.

What generally is the case that I have seen firsthand just recently is that this current season is going to last a lot longer than you think.

That saying, "This is not a good time," won't work because every single day it's just the same thing.

I can do that tomorrow.

Excuse number one we just talked about.

That tends to kick in along with this one.

Like, "This isn't a good time, but I will have time next week."

But the thing is, there's really not going to be a better time.

You start now, where you are, with what you have.

That's where everything starts.

To use the excuse of, "Now is a bad time," is really a way of saying, "This thing I'm trying to do is not as important to me as the other things I've already said yes to."

Which is a question of priorities.

It's a question of sacrifice.

It's a question of do you say yes or no to things that are on your list?

Because at some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and begin.

At some point, you're going to start now with where you are, even if that place seems crazy and not prepared.

You don't feel ready.

That's okay because no one feels ready.

No one feels ready.

They just begin anyway.

If someone does feel ready, that means they should have started years ago because they missed the opportunity to start when they didn't feel ready.

That's the truth.

That's what you're going for.

You start now because if you don't start now, there's not going to be that tomorrow.

There's not going to be a good time tomorrow.

Today is that time.

Today is your day.

Common excuse number five.

"I don't know how," or "I don't have the skills to," or "I don't really enjoy" fill in the blank.

The answer to all three of these excuses is the same.

If you say, "I don't know how," or "I don't have the skills," or "I don't like doing X, Z," learn it.

All of these excuses fade away instantly if you have the skills to do the thing you're not doing.

I say this from personal experience.

In just the last few months, I had this epiphany myself that there was a part of my business I didn't want to do.

I didn't have the skills to do it.

I didn't enjoy trying to do it.

I was bad at it.

Guess what?

I still kind of am bad at it.

I still don't know how to do this one aspect of my business, but I'm learning.

I've committed to the process of learning how to do it, and so it's getting better.

It's a slow and tedious process, like anything might be, to learn a new skill, especially one you believe that you don't personally enjoy.

Here's the funny thing about that.

Most people in most scenarios who say they don't enjoy something, it's because they don't have the skills to do it well.

But if you learn it, if you gain the skills, and you get really good at doing that thing, all of a sudden it's a lot more fun, because we love doing things we're good at.

We enjoy doing things that feel natural and come easily to us.

And when you have the skills to do something, you've removed the excuse of, "I don't like it because I'm bad at it.

I don't like it because I can't do it well."

All of a sudden, that doesn't exist anymore.

Now, you may learn the skills for something and still not like it.

That's possible.

That's a different conversation.

But if you have the skills, and you can learn to enjoy and revel in the fact that you're good at this thing now, you've done it enough times now, well, then the excuse disappears.

And you just do the task, you get it over with, you move on to the next thing.

Learn to do the thing that is the obstacle in your path.

Become a master of that skill.

And then all of a sudden, you're making progress without all the nonsense.

So now that we've knocked down the top five most common excuses, let's discuss what it takes to overcome the most insidious of habits.

Now, the funny thing here is a side note.

I wrote the word "insidious" down in my notes without even realizing what that word meant, and I had to look up the definition of it.

It just popped into my brain, and I was thinking, "This sounds like a great word.

I don't know what it means."

What it actually means is to proceed in a gradual or subtle way, but with harmful effects.

So imagine a bad habit that's gradual, it's subtle, it sneaks into your life, and it causes harmful effects.

It's a bad habit.

It works against you over time.

And so we're asking the question right now of what it takes to overcome not just bad habits in general, but the kinds of bad habits that are sneaky.

The kind that come into your life and cause harm and wreak havoc and make you just think, "Oh man, I screwed that up because I should have seen it coming, but I didn't."

So let's talk about a few of these ways to overcome these bad habits, these things that if you make the switch, you can start to do the thing that's going to have better results for you in the long run.

Once again, if you have time for X, the bad habit, you definitely have time for Y, the good habit.

So step number one to overcome these bad habits is to acknowledge reality.

You tell yourself the truth about the habit.

No lies, no excuses, no exaggerations.

This is an extremely important part of personal growth.

There is no way for you to grow in a realistic way from where you are to the next step up in your journey without acknowledging where you are now.

For example, let's imagine your goal is to lose some weight, and so you look at the scale, but you lie to yourself about what the number actually says, or you decide you're going to lose some weight and you never look at the scale to begin with.

You're not going to make the kind of progress that's possible without the truth.

You're not going to.

By lying to yourself, you are preventing progress.

You are preventing the ability for you to tackle the actual problem at hand.

And that's where growth comes from, is seeing the truth for what it is.

And even if it's bad, and it might be, but even if it's bad, that gives you real things to work with.

It is the truth.

The truth is powerful.

The truth leads to real progress.

What it takes to overcome bad habits is you have to understand where the bad habit came from, how it gradually and subtly snuck into your life, so you know how to stop it from sneakily coming back in later.

Acknowledge reality every single time.

Number two, find examples of others who have solved this problem you're trying to solve and then model after them, also known as copying.

In school, you would get in trouble for copying someone who was smarter than you, right?

You were cheating on the test.

In real life, cheating is totally fine in most cases, right?

We're not trying to reinvent the wheel.

We're trying to be strategic and smart and take an easier path that's proven to work.

So if you find someone else who has solved the problem and they're doing it really well, and you can directly copy what they're doing, go ahead and try.

In most cases, I'm not going to give you carte blanche opportunities here.

There are some cases where it's bad, but most of them in the real world are great.

Copy smart people and do it all the time.

You're going to solve so many problems by getting a great coach to give you advice on how to move forward by literally following and reinventing someone else's success.

Just do what they did and you'll get the results that they got.

And that's a great thing for everyone.

It can be that easy.

This podcast is a good example of that.

I directly copied Michael Hyatt's podcast that he had way back in the day over 10 years ago, and I strategically created my own version of what he was doing.

So it was customized, but it was very similar.

If you listen to his show, which he took offline, but if you had access to it way back in the day, you'd be able to see the difference, which there wasn't any.

It was just his show and mine were very, very similar, but it worked.

It absolutely worked.

And it works again and again in lots of places in life.

All right, number three to overcome the most insidious of habits is to start the good habit now before you have kicked the bad habits.

This is an interesting one.

You can actually begin a good habit with the intention of it crowding out the bad one.

You could begin to read at night, for example, before you have stopped totally wasting the evening hours.

You could begin a new fitness plan now before you have perfected your new diet.

You could start a small business idea now before you have the ideal plan in place.

In other words, we're not going to wait for ultimate success.

We're going to start now with what we have and let the good habits that we're beginning crowd out the bad one over time.

And then when it's time to let go of the bad habit, it's going to be easier because the good habit is already in place.

We've already established it.

There's already resources and a plan.

There's already the action steps in place and that's on the calendar.

We've got what we need.

So the bad one just kind of fades and then it's easy to let go of.

This is an incredible strategy that works every single time because it's just so easy to start now with tiny steps and then let those tiny steps grow over time.

This is a phenomenal process and it works so, so well.

Now for the last component of the episode this week, I want to talk more about the compound effect, which specifically there's a book from Darren Hardy called the compound effect that I've discussed a long time ago on this show.

It's an awesome book, a little older now, but still very, very effective and a phenomenal concept to master and then implement in your life, especially when it comes to tiny daily choices, the little ones that add up to big success over time.

Now, the first component of this, I actually stole from a different book, atomic habits from James clear.

Um, James was a previous guest of this podcast a couple of times.

Um, his book atomic habits also fits in this conversation really well because it is what we're talking about.

The kinds of habits that are tiny changes with remarkable results and the 1% rule that James talks about fits perfectly in this idea of tiny actions that compound over time.

So if you were to apply the 1% rule to fitness, you might lift weights that are 1% heavier or you're going to change your diet.

So you eat a diet that's just 1% better and you can define what that means in terms of calories or content, the nutrients, but you define what 1% is and then you make a 1% improvement the next time around.

This could apply to your business, it could apply to your sales, it could apply to anything where you're looking for a tiny change, just 1% that over time compounds and adds up to enormous success.

The goal here is not to do something dramatic because you don't have to.

The 1% compounded over time will do all the heavy lifting for you.

And that's the amazing part.

You never have to actually work that hard, but you do have to work.

You do have to make the choice to dig in, to commit to this process and do the 1% every single day.

But if that's all you do, it is dramatic.

It is powerful.

And then the second piece kicks in, which is the hockey stick effect.

And the hockey stick is when you see this graphed over time, what you'll notice is very little change and then all of a sudden dramatic change.

And what that really means is the 1% rule and tiny changes and little compounding for a long time will look and feel like no progress, no results for a long, long time.

This is when people quit.

This is when everyone gives up because they've been going to the gym for three weeks.

They saw no effect and they gave up.

But three weeks is not enough time.

Anyone who's ever worked out for a long time can tell you you're not going to achieve your goals in three weeks.

You're not going to achieve your goals in three months.

You will probably achieve them in three years, but it takes about that long for these things to kick in and ramp up and the hockey stick to then show up, which means all that little compounding eventually swings forward in a very dramatic way.

And then all of a sudden you feel it all of a sudden you're in the groove and those results begin to show up back to back to back.

That's when you're in the zone.

But to get to that zone, to get to that amazing hockey stick effect, you've got to put in the time upfront.

You've got to commit to the idea that, well, I had time to waste for the last X number of years on whatever I was doing.

Let's just change that habit and do the more effective one.

And then we'll be patient.

We'll wait for these results to kick in.

And no, I'm not a patient person.

I don't like this process.

No one does.

No one wants to wait for results they could get now.

Why would they want to wait?

Well, you want to wait because that's what it takes.

But the commitment to that daily habit and the 1% improvement, it works.

Trust me, it works.

Stick to it.

Make the change.

Find your way to stay committed every day.

Little rewards, whatever it takes, and you will see the results long-term.

They will kick in.

So once again, the book, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, Atomic Habits by James Clear, these are phenomenal books to dig more into this content.

Of course, you could always read my book, The 5 AM Miracle, or my second book, The Free Time Formula, all of which fit into this conversation really well.

So that's all I've got for you here on this conversation, but I would love to hear from you.

I would love to hear your feedback on excuses.

What excuses do you tell yourself?

Email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

I want to know what excuses you've used to stop your progress and then potentially the solution that you had to that excuse.

What allowed you to break free and achieve your goals?

Once again, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

And for the action step this week, make just one swap.

This instead of that, or this before that, choose something and make it stick.

Once you realize how much time you spend doing an optional activity that could easily be replaced with another, it's incredible how much time you all of a sudden have available.

So find your swap and implement it today.

Now of course you can subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5 AM Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

And that's all I have for you here on the 5 AM Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

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