All you need to exercise is your body.
There, I said it.
You don’t need gym membership, or an exercise partner, or the right shoes, or any equipment whatsoever.
I would even say that you don’t need extra time to exercise, since you can incorporate exercise routines in your daily activities.
Don’t get me wrong. You can get better results by using better resources, but you don’t need these resources to get some results.
I’m only using exercise as an example of one ingenious way we tend to come up with excuses.
We focus solely on a single “missing ingredient” and believe that nothing can be accomplished without it.
“Where in God’s name am I supposed to exercise if I don’t have gym membership? The MOON!?”
“What kind of a writer would I be if I don’t have a Moleskine notebook?”
“This Internet connection is SOO slow! I can’t do anything!”
That missing ingredient occupies all our attention and becomes an obsession that we can’t look beyond. Our goal no longer becomes exercising, or writing, or working, but getting gym membership, buying a Moleskine, or subscribing to a faster Internet connection.
And once that missing ingredient is acquired, you realize that there’s another missing ingredient you just can’t function without.
You’ll never have all resources at your disposal. There’s always something out there that can improve your results. But you need to work on getting some results now and make progress towards better results.
What resources do you already possess and can make use of? Focus on utilizing what you already have, before you set your sights on what you think you need to make progress.
Some progress with imperfect tools is better than no progress while desperately searching for the perfect tools.
5 replies on “The Countdown – Day 16: The “Missing Ingredient” Excuse”
I was really thinking about that last week! I always focus on the “missing ingredient excuse”! (waste of time and energy)
one thing I did is that I decided to read every single book that I bought and didn’t finish before buying anything new.
Thanks alot 🙂
I am so busted! Great article. I love the point you make about only needing your body to exercise. When did it get so complicated? Seems the “missing ingredient excuse” may be a cultural phenom that drives this consumer consumption society of ours. Thanks for a gentle wake up call.
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Nemo, that’s an excellent decision! Of course, you don’t HAVE to finish every book. When you realize that a book isn’t as valuable as you thought, you can put it down and cross it off your reading list.
I usually apologize to myself for making a poor buying decision, but think it’s better to admit making a mistake in buying a useless book than having to waste time reading through it without benefiting much.
Linda, I didn’t think about this point from a cultural perspective, so thanks for pointing that out! In many ways, we as human beings don’t really know what we want or how to satisfy our needs. Spirituality hasn’t yet gained the recognition it deserves, and not everyone who’s interested in spirituality truly understands it. So there is a vacuum that longs for a “missing ingredient” to fill its emptiness.
But I’ll discuss that in a separate post. 🙂
yes right, I don’t have to finish every book 🙂
but in mycase I’m just punishing myself because I keep buying books withouting reading/finishing them ;p
If the book is not worth it, I will force myself to write why I couldn’t finish the book on goodreads.
I attended some nasty films in the Dubai International Film Festival. I think I punished myself enough to last me a life-time!
You might wanna attend the festival next year to get the punishment out of the way! 😛