The Big Lie We Tell About Being Too Busy
Iām having a heck of a hectic month. Not only do I have a bunch of new copywriting clients (woohoo!) ā Iām also taking the accelerated version of whatās usually a year-long digital marketing course.Ā
Naturally, given my renewed membership into the āBite Off More Than You Can Chewā Club, I think itās perfectly acceptable to decline invitations and requests with a polite āIām too busy.ā Itās the truth, after all, right?
Just this week, I claimed to be too busy for a single, hour-long yoga classā¦ and then the very next day said yes to an art class that would eat up 3 hours of every Tuesday for 8 weeks. Thatās some pretty messed-up āIām too busyā math right there. (But heyā¦ collage-making. How fun is that?)
If you really think about it, thereās no such thing as being ātoo busy.ā Itās probably one of the biggest, most prevalent lies in the world ā because the truth is, when we really want to do something, weāll find the time. And if we donāt have the time, weāll make it.Ā
So why the lie? Some people say that āIām busyā is a kind of humblebrag, so maybe thereās thatā¦ but I think that in many cases, there might be more to it. ItĀ might be worth a few minutes of our (apparently not really very limited) time to look into the reasons behind why we actually tell this lie - and what we really mean when we say it.Ā
So here, I made us all a worksheet. :)
Feel free to grab it and fill it out. And you know what? What you find out after the little exercise in honesty just might surprise youā¦Ā
Iām not even trying to be funny here. The truths above are real and legitimate concerns, in my opinion. Especially that last one.Ā Point isā¦ none of them have ANYTHING to do with being busy.Ā
SoĀ DO ITā¦ try the āIām Busy BS Assessment"Ā - especially if you find that you use the busy excuse a little too often. According to this HuffPo article I read today, it might actually be symptomatic of something else.Ā
For many of us, when we are faced with an opportunity to change something about our lives or improve ourselves in some way, rather than to say, "Okay, Iāll make time,ā we experience inner resistance. That inner resistance then surfaces by making a comment like āI donāt have time.ā Ā -Ā Jennifer TwardowskiĀ
That inner resistance can be caused by a lot of things (fear, a feeling of inadequacy, and so on.) It might be interesting - and important! - to discover what the cause of your own resistance might be. So go for it.Ā
Personally, Iād like to spend some time looking into it because I worry a little about how my perpetual ābusy-nessā might be making people feel. Just the other day, a friend jokingly told me āItās a good thing weāre not dating. Youāre always rejecting me.ā and while I LOL'ed and shot back that āItās not you, itās me.ā - it did make me think.Ā
From this point on, If Iām going to say no to something, Iād like to be honest and up front about why, if possible. Because people arenāt dumb. More often than not, they realize that when you say āI donāt have timeā, what youāre really saying is āIām not willing to MAKE the time.ā And that can kind of suck, especially if they internally add what they think is an unspoken āā¦for you.ā
Letās avoid that, if we can.Ā
So yeahā¦ something to think about, for sure. Letās make some time for that. Cheers! :)
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