Sunday, September 4, 2011

I Am Too Busy To ...

Yesterday, I bought a new road bike. I know this sounds trivial, especially considering I have three mountain bikes in the garage, and ride 4+ days every week. It is significant because I have been saying that I want to purchase a road bike for more than two years. I never found the time to make this purchase. I have just been too busy.

When you hear someone say "I am too busy to ...", what do you think? Often, "I am too busy" is a rationalization for "I have higher priorities." These other priorities can be work, family, exercise, hobbies, watching television, playing games, or any of a multitude of activities in our busy lifestyles. There is never enough time to do all the things that we would like to do, so setting priorities is critical.

Purchasing a road bike was de-prioritized for other things that I prefer doing. Instead of spending the two hours at a bike shop to select and purchase a bike, I chose to do other things. What finally made me purchase a new bike was my telling a group a friends that I was going to do so before the next road race in November. The additional peer pressure of a public commitment made the difference. Within a week, one of those friends invited me to meet him at the local bike shop, and I now have a bike.

If you truly want to make a change, here is my advice:
1) First, commit to yourself a very specific and measurable goal.
2) Make this same commitment to your peers.
3) Ask them to follow-up and hold you accountable.

So, come November when I ride the long road race, I will be riding a sleek new road bike instead of slogging it out on a mountain bike for more than four hours. I cannot wait!

4 comments:

  1. We *always* find the time to do the things we really want to do. Whenever I hear someone say "I don't have time" I know it's just an excuse. We make a lot of excuses for things that don't really matter. That's OK, I guess, except that we can become so accustomed to making excuses that when it does matter, and we need to make the time to do something, it's too easy to avoid.

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  2. Great points, Bret. It is especially worrisome when you find yourself making those excuses!

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  3. So if someone says "I'm really very busy" when they are on facebook making comments to profile pics of theirs, posting on their pages, twitter, etc constantly, and they give that as a reason why they cannot talk to someone.... Is that rationalization?

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    1. In your example, "I'm really very busy" probably means "I have higher priorities" than talking to that someone. What people do tells you what they choose to spend their time on.

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