August 13, 2025 • 14 mins
How do you tell when you’re giving yourself genuine grace—and when you’re just making excuses? In this episode, I’m breaking down how to find the balance between living your life and staying committed to your goals. You’ll learn the key questions to ask yourself, why “special occasions” can be a slippery slope, and how to spot when “just this once” has become a habit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the Eat Well Think WellLive Well podcast.
(00:02):
I am Lisa Salisbury and this isepisode 158.
Is it grace or excuses How toknow the difference?
Welcome to eat well.
Well, the podcast for busy womenwho want to lose weight without
constantly counting, tracking,or stressing over every bite.
I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certifiedhealth weight loss and life
(00:24):
coach, and most importantly, arecovered chronic dieter here.
You'll learn to listen to yourbody and uncover the reasons
you're reaching for food.
When you're not truly hungry,freeing you to focus on a
healthier, more fulfillingapproach to eating.
Hi friends.
Welcome back to the podcast ifyou're new here.
Hello.
Hello, I'm your host, LisaSalsbury, and today's episode
(00:46):
comes right outta my own life.
These past few weeks, I haveskipped publishing the podcast
twice recently, and that's forthe first time in three years.
It was a combination of reasonslike trying to do all the summer
things and also a lot of stresswith some personal family
issues.
Also, I missed because I washeading out of town and I didn't
(01:09):
get it done beforehand, and thenI didn't bother to do it when I
got back, and it got me thinkingabout something I frequently
coach on.
Was I giving myself grace?
Or was I just making excuses?
This is something we all face,not just with work or creative
projects, but with our healthgoals, our eating habits, our
(01:30):
workouts, or really anythingwe've committed to.
Sometimes we genuinely need restor space.
Other times we're lettingourselves off the hook in a way
that slowly erodes our progress.
So today I wanna talk about thedifference between giving
yourself grace and makingexcuses.
(01:52):
How to know when to lean intorest and when to recommit, and
why.
The justice once or it's aspecial occasion, can be a
slippery slope depending on thefrequency.
Okay, so let's start with graceversus excuses.
Giving yourself grace isacknowledging your humanity.
(02:15):
I wanna repeat that.
Grace is acknowledging yourhumanity.
It's recognizing that you can'tbe perfect and that life will
sometimes get in the way.
It comes from a place ofself-compassion and respect and
love making excuses.
On the other hand, is when youuse a reason to avoid doing what
(02:37):
you've committed to.
Over and over again.
It's when the reason startsshowing up more often than the
action itself.
Sometimes making excuses areusually not coming from that
place of self love.
So we wanna kind of really delveinto when you're, you know,
(02:59):
working on this, where is thiscoming from?
Because if you know it'sself-respect and compassion.
It's probably Grace.
So my example that I startedwith, when I look at those
skipping of the two episodes,um, I can see that the first one
when I was stressed and dealingwith some personal life was
(03:20):
honestly probably grace.
I needed the bandwidth for otherthings, but the second time.
I had time before my trip.
I just chose not to prioritizerecording.
That's leaning into excuseterritory.
And the major difference here isthat because I had done it once,
(03:40):
I no longer had my streak.
I no longer could say I'vepublished 156 weeks in a row.
And looking back, I can see howthat really let the excuse of
not having time before orhonestly after the trip, I could
have done it after.
Also, I let that excuse sneakin.
Um, a client of mine once toldme that whenever she went out to
(04:04):
a restaurant, she ordered sodaand often dessert because it was
a special occasion.
I'm putting that in quotes.
So we got into it.
Her and I and I started askingquestions, and you know what We
discovered she was eating outtwo or three times a week.
If almost half of your week is aspecial occasion, how special is
(04:25):
it?
Really, it's just your normalroutine, which is fine, but
just.
We got honest, right?
She and I got honest about it.
She felt it was special becauseit wasn't at home and she didn't
have to do the planning or thecleaning up, and so it all felt
like a break, and that told herbrain she needed to order food.
(04:45):
That also felt like a break.
The same thing happens when wesay it's just one time, or I
don't normally do this abouttreats or skipping workouts or
ignoring hunger cues when justthis once turns into almost
every day.
It's no longer grace.
It's a pattern.
(05:06):
So we don't want to be so rigidthat we can't enjoy a birthday
dinner or skip a workout whenwe're sick.
But we also don't want to usebalance as a cover for never
fully committing to our goals.
If you constantly say, well, ifit works out.
When you're thinking about thosehealthy habits you want to form,
you might be leaning too far tothe balance side.
(05:29):
James Clear in Atomic Habitssaid missing once is an
accident.
Missing twice is the start of anew habit.
This is a distinguishing featurebetween winners and losers.
Anyone can have a badperformance, a bad workout, or a
bad day at work, but whensuccessful people fail, they
rebound quickly.
The breaking of a habit doesn'tmatter if the reclaiming of it.
(05:51):
Is fast.
I think this principle is soimportant that I'll stick to it
even if I can't do a habit aswell or as completely as I would
like.
Too often we fall into an all ornothing cycle with our habits.
The problem is not slipping up.
The problem is thinking that ifyou can't do something
perfectly, then you shouldn't doit at all.
(06:14):
I love that quote and um.
The only thing that's kind ofweird about it, just to be
clear, I don't consider myself aloser for skipping things.
So that language at thebeginning, like this is the
distinguishing feature betweenwinners and losers.
I think he's mostly talkingabout like in, in a sports
reference there, like when youwin or lose a game.
But, um, I, I.
Yeah, so that feels a littleharsh, but overall it's a good
(06:38):
concept about the way newhabits, those habits of skipping
out those new habits, um, on howthey form.
So let's talk about a fewquestions I use with clients and
myself to check which side I'mon.
So number one.
Is this reason a rare exceptionor a frequent habit?
(07:02):
And this is really what I delvedinto with my client, with the,
uh, restaurant example.
Like what's the frequency here?
This is where we need some data.
You can use a habit tracker oreven your food journal.
That's what we used with thisclient to see how many times
you're going out to eat aregoing over your.
Say your added sugar goal or youare undereating your protein.
(07:25):
Look at your sleep tracker tosee how often you stay up past
what you have set as a bedtime.
Right?
We wanna look and see are theserare exceptions or is this
happening time and time again ina week?
Um, it's tricky because if yourteenager comes in and wants to
talk at 10 30, which.
Is usually the time that they doright?
(07:46):
You're getting ready for bed.
Um, by all means chat away.
That's important.
But if it's the only time thatanyone in your family wants to
chat, then you need to starthaving.
You know, some boundaries setand going and seeking out those
kids earlier in the day so wecan maybe make those
conversations happen at adifferent time.
So if you're like, there's justnothing I can do, we, when we
(08:09):
feel the victim of like, there'snothing I can do, this is when
these things happen.
I don't have, you know, I don'thave control over these
situations.
Use your habit trackers, usesome data and see where, how
often it's happening and whereyou might be able to make some
changes.
So frequency, that's like the,that's one of the big things to,
(08:31):
to first look at.
Okay.
Number two, if I look back overthe past two weeks, which has
happened, more following throughor making this same exception.
So you can really choose anytime period here.
I think two weeks is usually agood, um, frame of reference,
but it depends, depends on whatthe goal is.
But what you're saying is ifit's just this, once we wanna
(08:54):
look at how often it's happeningclosely related to the first
question.
But what we're looking for hereis how often we're calling
something a special occasion.
Right.
Get really clear on what thatis.
Like your birthday.
Yeah.
For me that counts.
That's a special occasion.
Going out to pizza on a Saturdaynight'cause you don't feel like
cooking.
Probably not a special occasionand you know, so probably not
(09:17):
gonna deviate from your goals ifyou're just trying to avoid
doing dishes, right?
So if you don't normally includesoda on your plan, then don't
order soda.
That's all.
It doesn't mean you shouldn'teat pizza, it just means pay
attention to your hunger scale.
Let the fact that you don't haveto do the dishes, be the
celebration enough and order thewater.
Um, number three, am I still ontrack to reach my goals if I
(09:39):
keep making this choice at thisfrequency?
Okay, so here's the kicker.
So you've looked at thefrequency, you've looked at the
last two weeks, like which ismore true, following through or
the exception.
And then you have to look at ifthis continues, can I still
reach my goals?
Regardless of how often the skipis happening, will it.
(10:02):
Your ability to get what youactually want missing two
podcasts in three years isprobably not going to keep me
from reaching women that need tohear this message, missing two
podcasts every month like I didin July.
That's not gonna cut it right.
So that I have to get reallyhonest and be like, that's not
okay.
If it was too, like over thecourse of a year, that might be
(10:24):
different.
But I gotta get really honestand say, get back on, get back
on track, right?
Because actually I love doingthis.
I love talking to you guys.
I love my listeners and, andhearing from you and all of
that.
But you just get to decide foryour health goals, what
frequency feels like it willstill keep you on track.
Typically, what I say, if you'relooking for a number here, if
(10:47):
you're 80 to 90% on on track.
You're going to reach yourhealth goals, right?
Um, so what feels like grace andwhat feels like an excuse is
also going to be personalbecause like I said, you have to
look at the emotion that'sbehind that.
But I think as you start toreally look at these numbers and
like kind of get into the dataof it, I think you're gonna
(11:09):
start to feel which way you'regoing.
So here's the thing though.
I think grace and stayingconsistent can actually coexist.
I did go to ma Pizza with myhusband Saturday night.
That example was real life.
I ate half my pizza, saved therest for the next day, which I
didn't even finish when I got itout.
(11:31):
Um, and I ordered water.
And I'm not telling you this toact like I'm better than you or
that I have it all together.
I'm not, and I don't.
But I just wanna give you a reallife example of what grace looks
like combined with stayingconsistent.
I still followed my hungerscale.
I didn't have a high sugar drinkbecause that's not part of my
standard protocol.
(11:51):
I ate pizza, which I love, and Ialso put a lot of protein on it.
I enjoyed not having to plan orto do dishes, and I also didn't.
Get a good amount of fiber inthat meal.
So for me, this is the grace ofnot every meal needing to be
perfect, combined with being asconsistent as I can with the
volume of food and the best Ican do with my nutrition goals.
(12:14):
I met my protein and my sugarintake guidelines that I've set
for myself, but I let the fibergoal go for that meal.
See how that's like a grace andconsistency married into one.
Grace keeps you in the game longterm because it prevents burnout
and shame.
Commitment keeps you movingforward because it builds
(12:37):
consistency and trust inyourself.
That piece is so huge, the trustthat you are going to continue
on, you really need both, butthey need to be in balance.
Too much grace withoutaccountability leads to
stagnation.
Too much commitment withoutcompassion leads to burnout.
(12:58):
So this week, pay attention tothe stories you're telling
yourself about why you're makinga certain choice.
Is it genuine grace or awell-worn excuse?
And if you're not sure, reallyget into the data.
Start tracking how often it'shappening.
The frequency often tells thetruth.
(13:19):
If you need help finding thatbalance so you can enjoy your
life while also seeing realresults.
Let's talk book a free consultcall with me through the link in
the show notes and we'll map outa plan that works for both your
goals and your reality.
If you need some help today, youcan download one of my freebies.
I've got a GLP one Successguide.
If you are on a GLP one that'slike ozempic or zet bound, or if
(13:42):
you're even just thinking aboutit, that guide is gonna be great
for you.
I've also got a what to do whenyou overeat.
If you find yourself overeatingtoo many times in a week to see
lasting success, this one is foryou.
Both guides are extremelythorough.
They are not just little onepagers.
Remember, what you eat matters,but what you believe about
yourself matters more.
(14:04):
Thanks for listening and sharingthe Eat Well Think Well Live
Well podcast.
This is the Eat Well Think WellLive Well podcast.
(00:02):
I am Lisa Salisbury and this isepisode 158.
Is it grace or excuses How toknow the difference?
Welcome to eat well.
Well, the podcast for busy womenwho want to lose weight without
constantly counting, tracking,or stressing over every bite.
I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certifiedhealth weight loss and life
(00:24):
coach, and most importantly, arecovered chronic dieter here.
You'll learn to listen to yourbody and uncover the reasons
you're reaching for food.
When you're not truly hungry,freeing you to focus on a
healthier, more fulfillingapproach to eating.
Hi friends.
Welcome back to the podcast ifyou're new here.
Hello.
Hello, I'm your host, LisaSalsbury, and today's episode
(00:46):
comes right outta my own life.
These past few weeks, I haveskipped publishing the podcast
twice recently, and that's forthe first time in three years.
It was a combination of reasonslike trying to do all the summer
things and also a lot of stresswith some personal family
issues.
Also, I missed because I washeading out of town and I didn't
(01:09):
get it done beforehand, and thenI didn't bother to do it when I
got back, and it got me thinkingabout something I frequently
coach on.
Was I giving myself grace?
Or was I just making excuses?
This is something we all face,not just with work or creative
projects, but with our healthgoals, our eating habits, our
(01:30):
workouts, or really anythingwe've committed to.
Sometimes we genuinely need restor space.
Other times we're lettingourselves off the hook in a way
that slowly erodes our progress.
So today I wanna talk about thedifference between giving
yourself grace and makingexcuses.
(01:52):
How to know when to lean intorest and when to recommit, and
why.
The justice once or it's aspecial occasion, can be a
slippery slope depending on thefrequency.
Okay, so let's start with graceversus excuses.
Giving yourself grace isacknowledging your humanity.
(02:15):
I wanna repeat that.
Grace is acknowledging yourhumanity.
It's recognizing that you can'tbe perfect and that life will
sometimes get in the way.
It comes from a place ofself-compassion and respect and
love making excuses.
On the other hand, is when youuse a reason to avoid doing what
(02:37):
you've committed to.
Over and over again.
It's when the reason startsshowing up more often than the
action itself.
Sometimes making excuses areusually not coming from that
place of self love.
So we wanna kind of really delveinto when you're, you know,
(02:59):
working on this, where is thiscoming from?
Because if you know it'sself-respect and compassion.
It's probably Grace.
So my example that I startedwith, when I look at those
skipping of the two episodes,um, I can see that the first one
when I was stressed and dealingwith some personal life was
(03:20):
honestly probably grace.
I needed the bandwidth for otherthings, but the second time.
I had time before my trip.
I just chose not to prioritizerecording.
That's leaning into excuseterritory.
And the major difference here isthat because I had done it once,
(03:40):
I no longer had my streak.
I no longer could say I'vepublished 156 weeks in a row.
And looking back, I can see howthat really let the excuse of
not having time before orhonestly after the trip, I could
have done it after.
Also, I let that excuse sneakin.
Um, a client of mine once toldme that whenever she went out to
(04:04):
a restaurant, she ordered sodaand often dessert because it was
a special occasion.
I'm putting that in quotes.
So we got into it.
Her and I and I started askingquestions, and you know what We
discovered she was eating outtwo or three times a week.
If almost half of your week is aspecial occasion, how special is
(04:25):
it?
Really, it's just your normalroutine, which is fine, but
just.
We got honest, right?
She and I got honest about it.
She felt it was special becauseit wasn't at home and she didn't
have to do the planning or thecleaning up, and so it all felt
like a break, and that told herbrain she needed to order food.
(04:45):
That also felt like a break.
The same thing happens when wesay it's just one time, or I
don't normally do this abouttreats or skipping workouts or
ignoring hunger cues when justthis once turns into almost
every day.
It's no longer grace.
It's a pattern.
(05:06):
So we don't want to be so rigidthat we can't enjoy a birthday
dinner or skip a workout whenwe're sick.
But we also don't want to usebalance as a cover for never
fully committing to our goals.
If you constantly say, well, ifit works out.
When you're thinking about thosehealthy habits you want to form,
you might be leaning too far tothe balance side.
(05:29):
James Clear in Atomic Habitssaid missing once is an
accident.
Missing twice is the start of anew habit.
This is a distinguishing featurebetween winners and losers.
Anyone can have a badperformance, a bad workout, or a
bad day at work, but whensuccessful people fail, they
rebound quickly.
The breaking of a habit doesn'tmatter if the reclaiming of it.
(05:51):
Is fast.
I think this principle is soimportant that I'll stick to it
even if I can't do a habit aswell or as completely as I would
like.
Too often we fall into an all ornothing cycle with our habits.
The problem is not slipping up.
The problem is thinking that ifyou can't do something
perfectly, then you shouldn't doit at all.
(06:14):
I love that quote and um.
The only thing that's kind ofweird about it, just to be
clear, I don't consider myself aloser for skipping things.
So that language at thebeginning, like this is the
distinguishing feature betweenwinners and losers.
I think he's mostly talkingabout like in, in a sports
reference there, like when youwin or lose a game.
But, um, I, I.
Yeah, so that feels a littleharsh, but overall it's a good
(06:38):
concept about the way newhabits, those habits of skipping
out those new habits, um, on howthey form.
So let's talk about a fewquestions I use with clients and
myself to check which side I'mon.
So number one.
Is this reason a rare exceptionor a frequent habit?
(07:02):
And this is really what I delvedinto with my client, with the,
uh, restaurant example.
Like what's the frequency here?
This is where we need some data.
You can use a habit tracker oreven your food journal.
That's what we used with thisclient to see how many times
you're going out to eat aregoing over your.
Say your added sugar goal or youare undereating your protein.
(07:25):
Look at your sleep tracker tosee how often you stay up past
what you have set as a bedtime.
Right?
We wanna look and see are theserare exceptions or is this
happening time and time again ina week?
Um, it's tricky because if yourteenager comes in and wants to
talk at 10 30, which.
Is usually the time that they doright?
(07:46):
You're getting ready for bed.
Um, by all means chat away.
That's important.
But if it's the only time thatanyone in your family wants to
chat, then you need to starthaving.
You know, some boundaries setand going and seeking out those
kids earlier in the day so wecan maybe make those
conversations happen at adifferent time.
So if you're like, there's justnothing I can do, we, when we
(08:09):
feel the victim of like, there'snothing I can do, this is when
these things happen.
I don't have, you know, I don'thave control over these
situations.
Use your habit trackers, usesome data and see where, how
often it's happening and whereyou might be able to make some
changes.
So frequency, that's like the,that's one of the big things to,
(08:31):
to first look at.
Okay.
Number two, if I look back overthe past two weeks, which has
happened, more following throughor making this same exception.
So you can really choose anytime period here.
I think two weeks is usually agood, um, frame of reference,
but it depends, depends on whatthe goal is.
But what you're saying is ifit's just this, once we wanna
(08:54):
look at how often it's happeningclosely related to the first
question.
But what we're looking for hereis how often we're calling
something a special occasion.
Right.
Get really clear on what thatis.
Like your birthday.
Yeah.
For me that counts.
That's a special occasion.
Going out to pizza on a Saturdaynight'cause you don't feel like
cooking.
Probably not a special occasionand you know, so probably not
(09:17):
gonna deviate from your goals ifyou're just trying to avoid
doing dishes, right?
So if you don't normally includesoda on your plan, then don't
order soda.
That's all.
It doesn't mean you shouldn'teat pizza, it just means pay
attention to your hunger scale.
Let the fact that you don't haveto do the dishes, be the
celebration enough and order thewater.
Um, number three, am I still ontrack to reach my goals if I
(09:39):
keep making this choice at thisfrequency?
Okay, so here's the kicker.
So you've looked at thefrequency, you've looked at the
last two weeks, like which ismore true, following through or
the exception.
And then you have to look at ifthis continues, can I still
reach my goals?
Regardless of how often the skipis happening, will it.
(10:02):
Your ability to get what youactually want missing two
podcasts in three years isprobably not going to keep me
from reaching women that need tohear this message, missing two
podcasts every month like I didin July.
That's not gonna cut it right.
So that I have to get reallyhonest and be like, that's not
okay.
If it was too, like over thecourse of a year, that might be
(10:24):
different.
But I gotta get really honestand say, get back on, get back
on track, right?
Because actually I love doingthis.
I love talking to you guys.
I love my listeners and, andhearing from you and all of
that.
But you just get to decide foryour health goals, what
frequency feels like it willstill keep you on track.
Typically, what I say, if you'relooking for a number here, if
(10:47):
you're 80 to 90% on on track.
You're going to reach yourhealth goals, right?
Um, so what feels like grace andwhat feels like an excuse is
also going to be personalbecause like I said, you have to
look at the emotion that'sbehind that.
But I think as you start toreally look at these numbers and
like kind of get into the dataof it, I think you're gonna
(11:09):
start to feel which way you'regoing.
So here's the thing though.
I think grace and stayingconsistent can actually coexist.
I did go to ma Pizza with myhusband Saturday night.
That example was real life.
I ate half my pizza, saved therest for the next day, which I
didn't even finish when I got itout.
(11:31):
Um, and I ordered water.
And I'm not telling you this toact like I'm better than you or
that I have it all together.
I'm not, and I don't.
But I just wanna give you a reallife example of what grace looks
like combined with stayingconsistent.
I still followed my hungerscale.
I didn't have a high sugar drinkbecause that's not part of my
standard protocol.
(11:51):
I ate pizza, which I love, and Ialso put a lot of protein on it.
I enjoyed not having to plan orto do dishes, and I also didn't.
Get a good amount of fiber inthat meal.
So for me, this is the grace ofnot every meal needing to be
perfect, combined with being asconsistent as I can with the
volume of food and the best Ican do with my nutrition goals.
(12:14):
I met my protein and my sugarintake guidelines that I've set
for myself, but I let the fibergoal go for that meal.
See how that's like a grace andconsistency married into one.
Grace keeps you in the game longterm because it prevents burnout
and shame.
Commitment keeps you movingforward because it builds
(12:37):
consistency and trust inyourself.
That piece is so huge, the trustthat you are going to continue
on, you really need both, butthey need to be in balance.
Too much grace withoutaccountability leads to
stagnation.
Too much commitment withoutcompassion leads to burnout.
(12:58):
So this week, pay attention tothe stories you're telling
yourself about why you're makinga certain choice.
Is it genuine grace or awell-worn excuse?
And if you're not sure, reallyget into the data.
Start tracking how often it'shappening.
The frequency often tells thetruth.
(13:19):
If you need help finding thatbalance so you can enjoy your
life while also seeing realresults.
Let's talk book a free consultcall with me through the link in
the show notes and we'll map outa plan that works for both your
goals and your reality.
If you need some help today, youcan download one of my freebies.
I've got a GLP one Successguide.
If you are on a GLP one that'slike ozempic or zet bound, or if
(13:42):
you're even just thinking aboutit, that guide is gonna be great
for you.
I've also got a what to do whenyou overeat.
If you find yourself overeatingtoo many times in a week to see
lasting success, this one is foryou.
Both guides are extremelythorough.
They are not just little onepagers.
Remember, what you eat matters,but what you believe about
yourself matters more.
(14:04):
Thanks for listening and sharingthe Eat Well Think Well Live
Well podcast.
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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.