Stop Making Excuses - The Only Way to Succeed

Here's something that I learned recently... It takes a bit of self reflection but once you realize what's really happening, it's extremely enlightening. I hope this type of revelation helps someone out there to get to the next step in your business or any area of your life.

It's about making excuses.

I used to be terrible when it came to making excuses. I'm still working on it too. It's almost like suffering from a condition that keeps getting worse. Once you let yourself excuse something, you start to train your brain to allow it to excuse other things and then you're an infected; you're an addict. Step one is to admit it.

It can be about anything.

"I can't make more money because I'm not qualified or smart enough..."
"I can't lose weight because I don't have time to exercise."
"I shouldn't talk to that person because they won't like me." etc...

The basic structure is:

"I can't do {something I want} because {something I believe is limiting me}."

These are often called limiting beliefs and they are controllable and you can change the way you think. A recent excuse (which is simple, but a good example) was that I caught myself constantly using was to choose white bread over whole grain. My excuse was that it's slightly cheaper, and only a few more calories per slice. But that's not in line with my goals is it? Every calorie counts, and honestly if $0.25 - $0.50 is a real decision maker, I have bigger problems. It's just an excuse. I'm convincing myself that one option is better than another even though I KNOW that the opposite is true.
Usually these types of excuses cause people to never achieve what they truly want to and it's time to STOP MAKING EXCUSES. It's important to overcome these limiting beliefs weather they are "what's the difference" type excuses or caused by fear or discomfort.

The only way to change, is to actually change.

The first time this truly sunk in, I knew I was really onto something and once you can change the default patterns that your brain jumps to while in certain situations, you will feel it too. Try to catch yourself making an excuse to do something that is totally outside your goal list.

Let's say you're overall goal is to lose weight before the summer... Your excuse might be the next time you're at the Bar with your friends and you make an excuse to have another drink.. in your mind it's, "Well... what's one more, I already had 3..." but the difference is 100 - 200+ calories!

Maybe your goal is to get a new landing page up to generate more leads but there's a Law & Order marathon on TV and you'd rather do that instead...

Or your goal is to launch a new Adwords campaign that could generate some quick traffic to your site, but you make some excuse like, "it's too expensive..." or "it won't work anyway..." or "i don't have the time...".

See what I'm getting at?

Don't make excuses to avoid progress.

Try to catch yourself while you are misaligned with your goals and you'll see nearly instant improvement in nearly any area of your life!

Hope this helps!

Now Go Take action!