What a schedule conflict taught me about the real reason why most of us never start
I looked at my calendar and felt my stomach drop. It was messed up.
The events sat on top of one another in the same time slot.
I had double booked. Sh*t.
One of them was for a meeting that just got put on my calendar by my boss at my job. The other was one that my client had scheduled weeks ago with a potential customer.
I had to send the awkward email to ask my client to reschedule. Luckily, one of the attendees was just about to ask for a reschedule. Close call.
Those are the challenges of having a job and running a business at the same time.
I had to solve problems at my job in the day, then solve problems in the business in early mornings, late evenings, and weekends. The hardest problem I didn’t foresee was balancing the schedules for important meetings on both ends. It’s not a problem you think about until you are in the trenches.
But it was a long way from the original problem that I had heard from people I was around – about how impossible it was to have a regular job and start a business.
This made me realize that the hardest problem wasn’t the double-booking. It was the story I’d been told, and believed, about what was even possible.
It’s easy to make excuses. It’s hard to do the thing you said you’d do.
Excuses are fun.
Right from when you’re a child you learn how to use them to get out of trouble.
Then you get older and realize the only trouble you’re in is created and judged by yourself.
Making excuses in adulthood can be inconsequential because you only have yourself to report to. However, it is also one of the most damaging.
Because it goes unnoticed.
Leading up to my double booking days of having a regular job and running a business, I heard it all from friends who had stable jobs but wanted to take the leap to do their own thing.
“If I didn’t have responsibilities, I’d be taking risks like you.”
“You know some of us have a family to take care of, we’re not like you single guys that can take risks.”
“There’s no time to do anything after work.”
One of them, during a friend’s wedding, even compared me and my partner’s financial situation to an investment portfolio: “Oh I see, she’s the bond, you’re the stock.”
Implying that while my partner and most people around the table with their stable job did the responsible thing, I got the luxury to go on my problem-free entrepreneurial adventures. There’s some truth to the stability argument. But he used it to justify why people like him couldn’t venture. I almost believed him.
For years, I believed them. You can’t start a business when you are tied to a job that pays the base bills. Until I did it for a year.
I realized that the narrative that people have said for years we’re just that – stories. None of them are real. Just stories packaged as excuses.
It’s a reminder to be careful what you believe. Otherwise people’s excuses will become your reality.
Excuses are just practiced behavior.
TIME was the #1 excuse I heard from over a hundred professionals I surveyed years ago – or so they said.
Not enough of it.
“I don’t have the time” is the Michael Jordan of excuses.
What I’ve learned over the years is not that we don’t have time, we just struggle to prioritize how to use our time. The problem is not time.
It’s just a convenient excuse that outweighs the need to do something more significant with your time.
For me, I’ve learned that most things worth doing are hard. Not having options to choose is a lot harder. My need to have more options outweighed the excuse of not running my business.
When excuses carry the most weight in life, nothing gets done.
You will continue to dream up new excuses, use them as a default convenience, and find it hard to follow through on the important things you want to achieve in life.
If I had accepted the excuses, I would have taken that job, and dropped the business. I would have made the BS narrative mine: “You know I have a stable job now that takes up all my time. There’s no way I can do a business on the side. I’m sure you understand.”
And most people would have accepted it for me.
That’s why I’m learning to focus on what I practice, and it boils down to the language I use.
The Language Kill-switch for Excuses
What I started doing was paying attention to my own language.
Not in a guru, self-help way. But just noticing what I was actually saying to myself when I didn’t do the thing.
I started asking myself a simple question whenever I didn’t follow through – “Am I practicing the thing, or practicing the excuse for not doing it?”
Instead of me saying “I don’t have time to do a sales activity for my business.” That’s a practiced excuse. I get more specific and say: “The 50 minutes I had to actually create a list of potential prospects, I used it to watch Allen Iverson crossover videos on YouTube.”
The more candid I am about what is actually stopping me, the easier it is to identify how I’m getting in my own way. And the more control I gain over how I use my time.
Now everytime I’m not doing outreach, it’s not because of some conditions beyond me. The language I use actually empowers me to know it’s within my control. I can make decisions to sign out of YouTube so I don’t get recommendations that distract me or do work offline.
The language you use will determine whether you build accountability or an excuse bank.
This week I’m doing something simple that I’d invite you to try yourself. Whenever I hesitate, I’ll stop for a few seconds and listen to what I’m actually telling myself. It might be more revealing than expected.
Closing reflection:
Double booking a work call and business meeting was a challenge.
Over the one year of doing it, I never fully figured it out but I got better at it.
The double-booking eventually sorted itself out. What took longer to sort out was the story I’d been telling myself about what was possible. I took what I learned then and applied it to this season of me fully working on my business again. The more I practice accountability, the less I lean on my excuses.
So here’s the question I have for you today: “What convenient excuse are you making now that sounds so sensible that it might be the biggest roadblock to living a more well-rounded life?”
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. I’m dropping a pre-order of my book soon. No more excuses. Please hold me accountable.
