Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

A client of mine told me yesterday that making more money, doing what he was doing, is easy. But then he said, he isn't doing it, because he doesn't like what he's doing anymore.

Can you say EXCUSE?

Yep, that's what it is - nothing but an excuse.

It's amazing the excuses we make trying to defend our actions - or even better our in-actions (and I use the pronoun 'we' in the preceding statement purposefully). The scary thing is that we reward this "excuse-able" behavior by convincing ourselves that the excuses are legitimate - that they are valid reasons to prevent us from taking action.

Don't kid yourselves - these excuses may help you feel better in the short term, but in the long term you will kick yourself over them. And most likely you are setting yourself up for a life of regret if you don't break this habit immediately.

Frankly, you have a choice - either you can choose to NOT have the world you want, making excuses for every little thing that gets in your way. Or, you can take control of your life by taking full responsibility for what you do (or don't do).

It is your choice. And whether you realize it or not, everyday you're making this choice - even though most of the time it's done completely unconsciously.

So as you are going about your day, listen to yourself. Listen to the language you use when you tell yourself or others why you didn't do something you intended to get done. Listen to the reasons and ask yourself, "Am I just making excuses?"

2 comments:

  1. You are SO right (as usual). It is easy to make excuses for things, almost as easy as breathing!

    Sometimes our "reasons" for not doing things may actually be "good reasons", but they are still excuses when you think about it. You can either let excuses overcome you or you can learn to say "so what" and overcome them.

    I working on it! ;-)

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  2. Allison, Great insight. Thank you so much for the comment.

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