“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one”. ― George Washington
I hate excuses, I mean hate them. If you ever want to frustrate me, then tell me why you can’t do something. We have all been guilty of excuses but need to stop them now. Here are some common excuses that I am sure you may have used before that are preventing you from achieving results and success.
Have you ever used one of following excuses?
- I don’t have the money.
- It’s going to be hard.
- I don’t know how to do it.
- I am just too tired.
- I don’t have enough time.
- What if it doesn’t work out?
- My family and friends would think I was crazy.
- I’m just too old or too young.
- It will never work for me.
Sometimes it’s just easier to choose tomorrow but I want to let you in on a little secret – tomorrow never comes. You need to start NOW! There is never any better time than now. Whatever you want to do (lose weight, learn a new language, start a new business, start a hobby, travel to Australia to swim with great white sharks) whatever your thing is, just start forward progress towards achieving what you want. As human beings we tend to over think and talk ourselves out of doing things now. We make excuses for why we cannot do them. Let’s say you want to run a marathon in 3 months, more than likely you will research what to eat, how to train, what shoes you need, where you should practice and on and on. These are all potentially important things and you should figure them out but these things are excuses that are preventing you from just lacing up your sneakers and going on a run now.
This analogy probably applies to a lot of scenarios in your life where you let excuses delay you and keep you from the win. I have won some of my biggest business deals when I avoided excuses. I would pursue clients that on paper were too big for my agency at the time. But I needed these clients to scale and grow my business and I was determined to get them. My competitors and sometimes even my own employees would say things like, “we have no chance of winning this account,” “we are too small,” “we don’t have the experience,” “we just are not ready” and on and on with excuses. I would just put my head down and charge forward and not let the haters fill my head with excuses.
Needless to say, my efforts to avoid excuses and focus on action and winning allowed my agency to start WINNING blue chip accounts. Once you WIN one blue chip that starts to become the new normal. Here are 3 ways to stop using excuses:
3 ways to stop using excuses:
- Stop thinking you have to be prepared and know everything to start.
- Even if it is a baby step just start and day by day you will make progress.
- Stop surrounding yourself with people that make excuses!
Bottom-line, you need to re-train your mind and stop with the excuses and focus on just starting and making progress with everything you want in life. We only have one life, so get to living. Start Now!
Judge Graham
www.JudgeGraham.com
