When was the last time you heard your partner, friend, family member or colleague make an excuse why they can’t do something? Are you tired of hearing “It is too hard”, “I am too busy”, “Sorry I was late”?
Would you like to stop those excuses and empower your loved ones and colleagues instead?
What are excuses?
You have probably heard lots of excuses. Your partner, friends, family members and colleagues have probably used a number of excuses – their manager, their team, the traffic, the weather, their fears, being tired, lack of time or money, etc. Excuses are reflected in the language that we use. When you hear “yes, I can…, but..” usually an excuse follows the “but”. When you hear “I can’t….”, “It won’t….”, etc. these are also excuses. Underpinning these excuses are often unconscious beliefs that limit our success. For example, if someone consistently makes the excuse “It is too difficult”, that becomes their reality. Their relationships and whole life revolve around difficulty, and that is what they keep creating through their language and behaviour for as long as they have that belief.
Are you a Facilitator?
Anytime you hear anyone rationalize why they do not have what they want, they are making excuses for not having it. For example, “I can’t join you for a walk because it is too hot/cold to exercise.” What is interesting is that given the same weather conditions, other people demonstrate total commitment, follow through and achieve what they want.
Excuses are simply that, just reasons for not having the success that we want. Once we stop making excuses, our success improves dramatically. When you accept your partner’s, friends’, family members’ and colleagues’ excuses you are disempowering them and yourself. You keep them stuck in their problem by accepting their excuse and you become the facilitator of their excuses. Once you stop accepting other people’s excuses, you inspire and empower them and yourself at the same time.
Excuse Yourself from Excuses
Before you can stop excusing your partner, friends, family members and colleagues from their excuses, first you need to stop making excuses yourself. The people who are most successful in their relationships and in life are unwilling to accept their own excuses. Once you stop accepting your own excuses, it is a lot easier to stop accepting other people’s excuses because you are far more objective to come up with solutions instead.
When you are accountable to yourself and are excuse-free, you will attract people who are accountable too. Like attracts like! However, if you find yourself making excuses, you will attract people who also make excuses.
Excuses take a lot of effort, focus and energy – it takes some creativity to come up with a different excuse each time. How much brain power, mental focus and energy did it take to create and come up with the excuses in the first place? Probably longer than it would have taken for you to do whatever you avoided doing. Imagine the success you could achieve if, instead, you redirected that energy and mental focus towards generating creative solutions for yourself.
Dr. Vesna Grubacevic is an author (of the Amazon best-selling book, Stop Sabotaging Your Confidence), speaker, media commentator, and the founder and Performance Transformation Expert® with multi award-winning company, Qt. She holds a PhD, a BEc and is passionate about helping professionals and individuals to improve their confidence, emotional and mental wellbeing and success. For more free resources please visit www.qttransformation.com
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