It's not my fault.

Here's something I would like to work on.

I would like to stop justifying bad behaviour.

When you rationalize or justify bad behavior, you empower that bad behaviour in the future. You give yourself a pass to continue acting that way.

I mean bad behaviour loosely here.

Bad behaviour is anything you don't really want to do or think. Bad behaviour is anything you do that gets in the way of you feeling your best.

Bad behaviour is almost always the result of being reactive.

Being reactive means taking action without any thought about how you want to feel and what actions will lead there.

We have a vision of how we want to be. Kind, loving, and patient. Fun, funny, and a good friend. A diligent, hard worker.

Then life comes at us fast.

We experience some sort of contrast, and before we know it we're stuck in a negative feedback loop.

Out comes a whole range of actions that make us feel worse and worse.

Each one can be justified, but each one leads farther away from where we actually want to be.

We justify in advance.

We give ourselves a pass to continue with something that will lead away from where we really want to go. I shouldn't do that, but...

I shouldn't eat that, but it's still basically Christmas. Christmas is a time to splurge.

I shouldn't yell at my kids, but they are driving me crazy with all the yelling at each other. (I wonder where they get it?)

I shouldn't be in a bad mood, but things aren't going my way right now. (I wonder why they aren't?)

I shouldn't put off this highly important thing, but I've got so many urgent things on my plate right now. (I wonder why things are backed up?)

We justify in retrospect.

We don't want to act like that, but that thing we did doesn't count because...

I shouldn't have done that, but they were acting ridiculous.

I shouldn't have snapped, but I was having a bad day. I was tired and hungry.

I shouldn't have done that, but I was having fun.

I should have been on time, but the traffic was bad.

The worst part is that we slap the justifications on the end of our apologies to other people too.

Every time we do that, we're negating the apology.

I'm sorry, but _________________.

You can fill in the blank with whatever you want, but it always translates to:

I'm sorry, but it's not my fault.

An apology like this may be doing more harm than good.

Instead of empowering bad behaviour in the future, I want to focus on empowering good behaviour by owning up to the things I do that don't make me feel good.

I shouldn't have done that.

I shouldn't have yelled at you.

I'm sorry, I was rude.

I'm sorry, I brought bad energy into work today. I shouldn't have.

Identify the thing you don't want to keep doing, then stop.

Stopping is hard though. It is so tempting to fill in that gap with a reason why you aren't to blame. I think this may be a different form of Resistance. This is the ego protecting itself. The ego is always above blame.

So maybe we should also fill in the blank left by eliminating our justification with a plan for better action in the future.

Replace the but with an and.

I'm sorry that I yelled, and in the future I'm going to make sure that I don't take things out on you.

I'm sorry that I was late. Moving forward, I'm going to respect the commitments I make with you and be on time.

I shouldn't have eaten that tub of ice cream, and in the future I'm going to be mindful of how doing things like this make me feel after the fact.

Each time you do that, you empower yourself to act more in line with who you really are and want to be in the future. Each time you give yourself a pass, you empower that behaviour that ultimately doesn't feel very good.

This upcoming week, I'd like to be more mindful of this. I'm going to resist the urge to shift the blame. I don't care how justifiable it is. I don't care how frustrating someone else is being.

I don't want to use other people's problems to justify my own. I want to do my best and feel good about the things I choose to do.

Life is good.