Why do you use excuses? Is it the fear of failure? Fear of success? Is it because you are lazy or just not motivated enough? What ever excuse you have for using excuses, drop em’. Excuses allow you to get away with something you are too scared to do because you feel uncomfortable. You give out excuses because you want to avoid potential embarrassment, failure, or even success.
STOP USING EXCUSES!
It is simple really, follow the steps bellow:
1. DO NOT Tell Anyone Your Excuses.
Even if an excuse pops up in your head, DO NOT repeat it out loud. The more people who know about your excuses, the more they will hold you accountable to them. As I have wrote in previous blog posts, sharing your goal with everyone is the secret to success because of the high level of accountability. Sharing your excuses is the negative version of that type of affect and will result in your mind subconsciously validating that excuse. This is similar to being sick with a small cold or flu. The more people you tell about being sick, the worse and worse you will feel. There are a number of reasons why people like to tell others they are feeling sick. One of which is the obvious excuse of getting out of situation and the other is getting some sympathy votes.
2. Handle Your Own Objection
An excuses is really an objection in your own my mind, so handle it. Question yourself if your mind tells you that you cannot do something. Always look for an answer. People who can do this go from regular to great and great to master. Take Matt Scott for example (guy from the video).
3. Like Nike says, “JUST DO IT”
This is one of the most popular slogans of all times. It does not take a rocket scientist to interpret this message…
4. Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
One of the major reasons you use excuses is because you may sometimes feel uneasy and uncomfortable. What most people do not understand is that being uncomfortable is not just a good thing, it is a GREAT thing! I personally love to be in uncomfortable situations because it gives me new experiences and most importantly, it helps me grow mentally.
Get To Work
One of the most over used and understated quotes I have ever heard while working at the Mike Ferry Organization was, “You can make money or make excuses, but you can’t do both”
What is the lamest excuse you have ever used?
I don’t know about my lamest excuse, but probably my most common excuse is that I’m busy. No time for this, no time for that…
Essential post!
Thanks Vladimir, something we can finally agree on ;).
How do you typically handle your excuse? Or do you handle it?
Well, basically I hold on to advices 3 and 4, but I guess adding 1 and 2 to my arsenal against excuses will help me even more.
Having negative experience with having excuses is also helping me. Simple example: sometimes I tell myself I need a rest and literary spend my day in doing nothing – the result is that after such a “rest” I feel even more exhausted that if I had to work my ass off the whole day. Does this situation sounds familiar to anyone?
I bet these advices work in some way even against procrastination.
It very much sounds familiar. That “rest” can do more damage then good.
And yes this advice does fight against procrastination 🙂
Thanks AJ, this is a great article… there’s some meaty stuff in here! I love the idea of not sharing your excuses as it serves as a contra-accountability partner. That is brilliant.
I know when I’ve been in a challenging situation I’ve sometimes looked for an excuse to help ‘self the stage’ for lower expectations. And then I delivered to those expectations.
Shoot for the moon and if you miss you’re in the stars is a great cliche… the unspoken line is to not give yourself a reason not to even take off.
Great stuff! I’ve already set this up for my next round-up as I want to share this great information!
Thanks for sharing!
Dave
Awesome, glad you found it useful. What you said about “self the stage’ reminds of a bad thing some people do when they are public speaking…They set themselves up for failure by announcing things like:
“I’m not good at speeches…”
“This is my first time…”
“I’ve never done this before…”
You get the point. I like to refer to this as “tee-ing off to failure” (golf tee). You purposely state something negative about yourself so you have the excuse to use if you end up do a terrible job.
AWESOME video!!! I read without watching the first time around.
I’m glad you read the article first, my though was that people would watch the video first and then forget about the rest of the blog. 😀
My favorite excuse is simply “but i don’t feel like it”. It might be my most frequent thought. However, I’m getting very sick of that excuse, just like you hear the nation’s #1 song waaay too much. It’s literally played out.
lol! Well good. Sometimes you have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired…to change.
That is what it took for me to go from shy to not when I was about 18 years old.
Tell me how you will convince yourself to bypass this excuse next time?
Well, I have used a lot of excuses to my parents, to my friends and to my professors. I don’t see that we have to avoid excuses because sometimes if you don’t, you will hurt other people’s feelings. What do you think about it?
PS. The video is no longer available.
Hi Zobrac,
video worked for me 🙂 This post and video is more so about the excuses you give to avoid taking action, moving forward, or trying new things.
There is a difference between saying, oh I’m not good enough, so I won’t make any money compared to My dog ate my homework, so I need another day.
Don’t use excuses to hurt people’s feelings, learn to communicate effectively enough for people to listen to your truth.
Get what I mean?
Hey. the video’s working for me now.
Now, I get what you mean, I too am guilty of using too much excuses because I might not do good, people might laugh at me, people would think that I’m not good enough, maybe I’ll fail. Well, that’s the main reason why I use excuses too much,
I’m afraid to fail even if I haven’t tried it yet. I was focused much on what-if-I-fail rather than on thinking that I may win. Wow, that’s a thing I just realized just now.
Thank you. AJ Kumar. I hope everyone else here will be able to gain insight from my post.
I’m glad you had an epiphany!!
yes, I did. Thanks a lot, AJ
Great video. I was sick of listening towards the end. I make my home a no excuse zone. One can make it a motto or mantra. No excuses!
hahaha…you should post that the door of your house so people can read that before they walk in.
There are times when I haven't made excuses and burnt myself out. An excuse like – no I can't finish this project because I can't work through the night and the next day and continue with my normal heavy workload. What's the advice for a person who can't make excuses because it's regarded as weak?
Well Paisley, to be honest, you are not really making excuses…you are just burned out. You must understand, that once you hit a certain hour in the day, your brain goes into this mode where you “half-ass” everything. Do this: learn the art of 4-6 hour sleeping so you can have a much longer day to get more stuff done. Don't beat yourself over getting tired…it's normal.
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