Today I am revisiting a previously published article on excuses.  

 Inventing Your Life

“No Excuses”

By

Rob Claudio

I recently participated in a new type of training, that I found very helpful and inspiring.  Among some of the things that we talked at length about was what success meant to us.  After much pondering during the training and now afterwards I realized that not accepting tired old excuses for one’s failure (s) to achieve success, was a great hurdle that most of us have endured at one point or another.  I thought back to the many goals that I have set for myself and accomplished.  Then the one’s that I didn’t exactly achieve. What I found was that there was always a “good excuse” for not meeting some of those goals.  Then I started to think back as to how many times I have used an excuse for those particular goals and I also realized that I had talked myself into accepting the excuse first, so that I would not feel so bad afterwards.  Does this sound familiar to you?  Some of the creative reasoning for my excuses has actually made me laugh out loud, with regards to the lengths that one will go through in order to achieve validation on your excuse.  Are excuses keeping you from achieving success in a particular area?  Are you tired of reiterating your old excuses and coming up with new creative ones?  Both of these questions definitely bring progress to a screeching halt.

Excuses basically stop us from taking action.  An excuse (although it may sound very good) brings us to a stand still and leaves us feeling unfulfilled & sometimes feeling bad about ourselves because we have a sense of failure that goes with it.  I used to always end my day at work with a list of things that I did not finish.  Then I would leave my office and drive thinking about the things I needed to do first thing in the morning.  Sometimes, if I was at a stop light for a little too long, I would call my assistant’s voicemail and leave a message for the many follow up things she would have to do first thing in the morning.  Can you imagine, you leave work one evening feeling like you accomplished quite a bit and then you arrive in the morning to a message that says not only did you not finish enough the day before, you now have a laundry list to tackle as you begin the day.  By the way, I stopped doing this to my assistant a long time ago as I realized that action items would be never ending. Plus we both needed our sanity at 8am.

What I did start doing recently is listing the things that I did accomplish at the end of the day.  Rather than feeling like I did not do enough this new perspective allows for me to focus on what was done.  It is a small change and it stopped me from adding to my list of creative excuses for not completing my to-do list.  Remember that excuses can fester and create a sense of unfulillment.  My hope is that you work on getting rid of excuses and achieve all of the success that you want in your life.  Whatever you define success to be, may it provide enjoyable fulfillment and add to a more balanced life!

 “The courage of conviction, the strength to persevere, the hope that survives disappointment – These are the keys to success”

From the book “No Limits But the Sky