Excuses, excuses, excuses

In yesterdays post; Mind Virus Alert, I mentioned excuses.

“If we allow excuses, our journey to success will be extra challenging and we may even quit”.

Why Do We Allow Excuses?

Excuses are a hindrance that block human potential by building bridges to tombstones of

emptiness. We allow them because we developed and reinforced them while we walked the path of life, until without realizing, they became our way of being. We walk the same paths repeatedly because of them and often they are so ingrained, they feel like a friend or comfort blanket that protects and guides us yet, we don’t even know that some of them exist.

Excuses Offer Rewards

They offer security and instant responses to challenging situations, often they justify inaction or running from a situation or something we might benefit from if we face the situation and get on with it. The rewards excuses offer seem positive and entirely worthwhile. Yet reality often tells a different story and the psychological benefits of excuse making have a habit of coming back to bite us because they are quite destructive. Not at all real benefits.

Excuses Are Self-Sabotaging Beliefs

They serve to keep us running on the spot or they may even send us backwards over the same old ground to those bridges leading to the tombstones.

• Going Premium at Wealthy Affiliate isn’t for me, I have no money.
• This is too difficult; I don’t have the skills or experience.
• Developing a successful business will take too long; I don’t have the time for that.
• My goals are too big. Best abandon them and do something else.
• There’s too much competition.
• I’ve never been successful.

Once we justify inaction with explanation, we are free to enjoy the perceived pay-off – The avoidance pay-off.

• I can’t write posts for my website . . .
• I’m not a writer, I’ve always been a hands-on person.
• I never did well with writing at school.

Yet some people put their words out there and write some outstanding posts even though they had some of those excuses.

I know one guy who dropped out of school before the end of the prescribed formal education period. He left school with nothing but limiting beliefs and went to work in a ‘mind-numbing’ factory. For a while he was at peace with the self-thwarting decisions he had made. At least until he realized that 60-hour work weeks were the only way to provide for his family. It broke his excuses and today he has a multi-million-dollar business. He realized that the excuses he thought of as his ally didn’t have his best interests at heart.

It’s Not Safe

Let’s be honest, none of us like to feel unsafe or insecure so we apply excuses to avoid danger. So instead of making changes and treading a path into uncharted territories with the perils of not knowing what to do in those territories, how to operate, appearing foolish or unknowledgeable, risking failure or criticism, we head for the false sense of security beneath the comfort blanket of our excuses. The blanket offers a temporary pay-out.

Taking the Easy Path

Excuses offer the easy way out and let’s be honest; have you ever said, “I will get to that later, I’m too tired right now”. Even though that might not lead us to achieving our goals, we still do it. It’s far easier to stay on the well-worn path to nowhere.

If you want to fulfill your destiny it’s going to demand sacrifice and elements of risk. There’s no free ticket to success.

How often have you heard (or said) any of these?

• I’m too old / too young / too tired
• I can’t afford it
• I don’t deserve it

Translating to:

• You do it for me
• Please buy what I need or want
• Feel sorry for me, please help me to get what I want

I’m Right, You’re Wrong

Being right at the expense of somebody else is wrong is a tailor-made excuse for not considering other options and drops us into the excuse that we are winners when really, it’s no more than an illusion.

The rules won’t let me do that. Getting ahead in this is impossible. I’m right again.

It’s Not My Fault

Blaming somebody else is an excuse and in doing so, blame shifts to somebody else. Look at how scapegoats have collected blame for things that you could have done something about. Choosing a scapegoat has a rich pay-out – not my fault.

Acting Like Children

It’s hardly surprising really. We were brought up under the protection of a family of some description. Told what to do, when, how to; so it’s hardly surprising that we develop some of these excuses and hang on to the well-trodden route map and retreat back to the safety of childhood when the going gets tough even though such behaviors don’t serve us well as adults.

Being Present

There are lessons to learn from the past and plans to make for the future but the only time we have to do that is right now; in the present. We can’t go back and change things, but we can choose to make a difference in our lives by rejecting the excuses we brought with us to this moment. We can choose new paths, it’s a matter of choice to do or do not.

What’s Your Excuse?

Here are five things that can be applied to the destruction of excuses.

1. In any project or event that demands your attention ask yourself; what is the worst thing that could happen if I do this? Make a list and work to genuinely find a solution to everything on your list.
2. I will write that list, but . . . Stop using the word ‘but’ at the end of a sentence.
3. Without being rude or challenging, don’t get involved in other people’s excuses.
4. Write any big goal at the top of a sheet of paper and then break it down into micro-chunks. Don’t look at item two on the list until you can say without excuses that number one is complete.
5. Test your limits, just do it regardless. This is a tough one although highly-rewarding. When you notice your excuses popping in, write them down and challenge them by finding positive solutions. Cross them off when the excuses are gone. This is a positive addictive exercise when you begin to see your old debilitating excuses fall into oblivion. Your no excuses potential is a wonderful thing.

The only thing standing between you and your goals are the excuses you keep giving yourself as to why you can't achieve them.