Didn’t get the tasks done? Too busy Team member not working out? They’re no good Potential client didn’t sign up? No one is buying
The way we justify scenarios and situations in business can quite often perpetuate the problems rather than focusing on solving them and getting them sorted.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How justifying yourself constantly in business could be holding you back
A quick trick to alleviate the pressure of self-imposed deadlines
How over-explaining yourself could be causing you chaos
Didn’t get the tasks done? Too busy Team member not working out? They’re no good Potential client didn’t sign up? No one is buying
The way we justify scenarios and situations in business can quite often perpetuate the problems rather than focusing on solving them and getting them sorted.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How justifying yourself constantly in business could be holding you back
A quick trick to alleviate the pressure of self-imposed deadlines
How over-explaining yourself could be causing you chaos
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
Shannon Stone:
H ey guys, welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump into this episode today.
Shannon Stone:
Today, we are talking about how we can justify or over-explain ourselves in business and how this is actually a problem, and I think it really does hold people back from the growth that they're really looking for. There's a few things that sparked this conversation today. One of them was a post I shared a little while back, and it was a very short one, and it said something along the lines of instead of judging ourselves for the things that need fixing in business, just fix them. So it could be something like a team member is just not working and we're just working out the reasons why that team member isn't working, and maybe you haven't got the systems in place or you haven't delegated to them correctly or whatever it might be. And so we can go in this loop of judging and justifying and over-explaining whether it's to other people or just ourselves why certain things aren't working. And so, instead of judging ourselves for that or justifying, over-explaining all these kind of things, just go ahead and fix it.
Shannon Stone:
And I find often our stories can really be our demise. There's a few different scenarios and examples where I see this happen and people will say different things to me or, honestly, this has been me an over-justifier. Someone might say, oh, I'm so busy I didn't get that done. Like a client might say, oh yeah, I just didn't get around to doing any of the homework, and to me it's like it's actually okay to be busy, you're allowed to get busy, and it's also okay for you to not get things done as well. Just don't justify your reasons for not doing it. I will, in the action steps, tell you what you can do about it. But we don't always have to justify ourselves or over-explain the situations or the reasons for or against things happening. And this happens in sales, in marketing. It's like we might say, oh, that person didn't sign up because of XYZ reason, or that person signed up because of XYZ reason, and so our stories or our justifications can both be our demise. You know, it can bring us down as well as lift us up, and so I think we should be very selective in how we're using those words and also whether we even give any meaning to any of it at all. If you've done any kind of personal development, you will know the only meaning something has is the meaning that we give it, and for someone to, for example, say, oh, I didn't get around to doing that because of XYZ reason like we're just giving more reasons for not doing that thing and we're also perpetuating the problem and the situation as well.
Shannon Stone:
Another thing I will share on this is that sometimes, or a lot of the time, or all of the time slash, slash, slash our over explaining can turn into expectations, and what I mean by that is I've got an example for you Someone. Recently I inquired about something with them and they said yep, that's all good. We had a quick chat on the phone and they were going to send me some things at the straight after that call and that's what they said. They said I'm going to send you XYZ after this call A few hours. Nothing came through on email. The end of the day, nothing came through on email. The next day nothing came through on email as well.
Shannon Stone:
I thought about this and I was like I actually if it took him three days to send whatever it was, I would have been fine with that, but because he explained and set the expectation, I'm gonna send you these things straight after the call. Then I had an expectation to what he said, and when it comes to such a perfect example, when it comes to deadlines and timelines in business, this can be another area where this justifying and over explaining can cause us a bit of chaos, where you might say to someone okay, I am gonna send you this by the end of today. And then you start to hold a weight on your shoulders, all this pressure, when the days going on and you've already you said to someone I'm gonna send this over to you and you've already got all this other workload to do and now it's weighing on you. But it's weighing on you because you said it, that no one was expecting it from you by the time that you said, and so I'm very selective when I tell people when they will receive certain things from me or when they're likely to hear back from me. And just a little trick for us here is that to never say a specific day. So you might say I'll get this to you in the next day or so, but I won't say I'll get this to you on Wednesday or by Wednesday by the end of today, when there's a fixed deadline, and obviously there's times when you do have fixed deadlines, but there's also times that are not as hard deadline, so to say, I'm gonna send it to you in the next day or so or I'm gonna send it to you by the end of the week. Using that type of language and terminology, rather than a specific time or a specific day, can really alleviate a lot of the pressure we actually place on ourselves.
Shannon Stone:
The last example that I'll share with you is and I am like have been a chronic justifier of chronic over explainer and like even when it comes in, so it came in so many different ways, and I imagine for a lot of people as well it does particularly around compliments. So someone might compliment you on something and then you justify why that is to be and someone complimented me and said oh, your makeup is always like so on point, shannon. And instead of just taking the compliment, I had to be the chronic over explainer and say, oh well, when I was at uni and they're probably thinking, what has this got to do with, like her having nice makeup? When I was at uni, studied, studying business and marketing, I also, on the summer break, I went and did a certificate in makeup artistry and so I did this little side gig of being a makeup artist and so that's basically why I have the skills now to do makeup. And so that was the last time I or that was almost like the line in the sand where I said oh, shannon, you've really gone there again.
Shannon Stone:
You're just justifying and over explaining something that doesn't need justifying or over explaining. Now, that's a, you know, a non-business example, but the same thing happens in business. If someone says your work is incredible or that person got an amazing result, are you always justifying it? Are you always pulling it apart or picking holes or coming up with the story why it is that way? And we can do this in a way where it adds as an asset to our business, I think if you get people incredible results, you have to sing those praises.
Shannon Stone:
But sometimes and in certain situations we will justify and over explain ourselves in ways that cause us a little bit of chaos. And that's what I wanted to share with you today to be, I guess, mindful of when we might be justifying ourselves in business, and it could be saying things like, oh, I'm so busy I didn't get that thing done, or all these things in my business need fixing, or you know, the team member is not working out, or whatever it might be, and we're always judging ourselves and justifying and over explaining and coming up with stories and conclusions of why it is that way and, I guess, spending so much energy on that without even fixing it. So I have two action steps for you. Number one is to stop justifying yourself where it matters. So there's obviously times where you might want to explain yourself or explain certain things. I'll let you decide when and where. That is the situation. But number one, stop justifying yourself where it matters.
Shannon Stone:
And then, number two, when you do justify, how can you improve? So if you were, say, you've got clients and they didn't do the homework and they said, oh my God, I'm so busy I didn't get that done. Or maybe that's you. You're working with someone you didn't do the homework, so instead of saying, yeah, oh my God, I didn't get things done, how could you shift that and improve? So maybe in that case, if you're so busy, you didn't get all the things done. Is it that you need to be more organized? Is it that you need to be more disciplined? Do you need to prioritize certain things? Or were you just too ambitious as to what you thought you could get done? Or you over committed, or you know? It's like sometimes you and this is so important as a great example Maybe you didn't get things done, not because you're not organized, not because you're not productive, not because of you didn't plan it or anything like that, but maybe it was because you over committed yourself, or you were over ambitious or you know some other reason. And it's like you're allowed to experience what you just experienced and you don't have to justify the ways that maybe you were.
Shannon Stone:
So a little bit of an interesting podcast episode here for you today, but I thought I would jump on and share this. If you have any questions or thoughts about it, I would definitely love for you to share them. Reach out, share the episode with a friend who might be doing the same or have been in the same boat, but I will chat to you very, very soon.