Let go of all excuses – Part 1

Making excuses is a deadly disease. It eats away your future and steals your tomorrow like cancer. Excuses slowly eat away your future and well-being. Most of the struggles, poverty, and failures we see today are a result of people making excuses. You may know and have come across some of those people who thrive on excuses. I still meet people using excuses I used years ago and let go because I know better. It is like as I let go of excuses, others are finding them and using them. One of the excuses I used for many years was that I am not ready to do the things I wanted to do. I kept myself hidden for years, telling myself it was not yet the right time. I literally did not go out there using my talents because I convinced myself that I was not ready and that I needed more time. After training and speaking for years, I have had people come to me after my presentations to ask if I had a book they could buy or when was I going to put my ideas and experiences into a book. I always responded with the statement “At the right time.” I gave this reason for years because I made myself believe that it was not the right time. I came to realize there is never a right time.

Excuses are stealing and eating away your future one excuse at a time. Excuses will not change your current condition as long as you continue to feed them. Excuses fed will continue to grow big into a monster. The more you give yourself excuses, the more you begin to believe those excuses as legitimate and normal. Excuses may give you a feel-good and a justification for inaction. 

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver

Jack Canfield, the billionaire co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul said, “One of life's fundamental truths states, 'Ask and you shall receive.' As kids we get used to asking for things, but somehow we lose this ability in adulthood. We come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons to avoid any possibility of criticism or rejection.” Excuses will help you explain away and justify your current state but will never help you change the state.

​Excuses will create room for you to put the blame of inaction on someone or something else and not on yourself. Excuses will not inspire you to action. Your present position and condition in life is a result of all the excuses you have made, as well as your inactions. Mark Twain said, “There are a thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason.” Anytime you make excuses you are handing over the control of your life to outside forces; you shift your mindset from going after your dreams to ‘one day I will do it’. Making excuses becomes a habit and, before you know it, you are jumping from one excuse to the next instead of facing challenges and finding ways to work through or around those challenges.