Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!

Lately, I’ve become super sensitive to the amount of excuses people make
for not living up to their fullest potential.

I have a friend who is starting out on a new venture. He constantly
complains that his new venture is not going the way he wants it to go.
But, whenever I give him a suggestion to get around whatever he believes
to be an obstacle, he ALWAYS has an excuse as to why my suggestion won’t
work.

He is selling a product that he designed. He has the product available
in a few stores, in which he personally knows the owners. He’s also
trying to sell it on the Internet. But it isn’t selling like he thought
it would because he knows nothing about computers or the Internet.

So, I suggested that he branch out and contact all stores in the state
and surrounding states, to see if they would be interested in carrying
his product.

His excuse is that he doesn’t know how he can find all of the stores
that specialize in what he sells.

I suggest that he gets a yellow page or business-to-business book and
simply call the storeowners.

He says that his yellow pages only cover his area, and he has no way of
getting the information for the other stores.

I suggested that he goes on the Internet, go to www.msn.com or any
search engine and type in “directory.”

He says he doesn’t know much about computers or the Internet.

I then suggest that he goes to the library because they have yellow
pages and business-to-business books available and he doesn’t even have
to pay—he could Xerox the pages (for 5 cents a copy) or write them down
and call the stores later. Or, he could get someone who DOES know how to
use the computer and get the information for them.

He shakes his head and walks away. He HAS no excuse for this one.

I started to wonder, “Why is he sabotaging his own project?”

Then the answer came to me--FEAR disguised as excuses.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

The reason he has a negative answer for everything that I suggest is
because, deep down inside of him he is afraid that his vision will
somehow fail. He’s afraid of being looked at as a failure when and if
his venture does not take off. So, he hides behind excuses. Excuses give
him something to blame, other than himself, if his venture doesn’t do as
well as he hopes. He could always say, “Well, I could only get my
product into three stores. I wasn’t able to cover enough area that’s why
it didn’t jump off the way I thought it would.”

This way, he is SAFE. No one would look at him as being a failure. They
would just see that it was something that was out of his control.

Fear hides itself in a lot of different forms and comes out in different
shapes and sizes. Sometimes we won’t ever admit to ourselves that fear
is exactly what is stopping us for doing the things that we want to do
most. So, we make excuses as to WHY we can’t do this or can’t do that.

The truth is: THERE IS NOTHING THAT YOU CANNOT DO. My favorite verse in
the Bible states it clearly. WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!!

I state this verse, over and over to myself, especially when I find
myself thinking of an excuse as to WHY I can’t do something.

The truth of the matter is, there aren’t any excuses. We are just afraid
to take the leap of faith. We are afraid that we might fail. We are
afraid what others might think of us. We are afraid of getting hurt or
offended. We are afraid of being a success.

If we try it and we fail, “They’re ALL gonna laugh at you.” (Remember
that line from that Carrie movie?) So, if we make excuses, we somehow
justify in our minds that WE are not the failure, but outside
circumstances has caused us to fail.

But what if you looked at it this way?

What if you didn’t accomplish EXACTLY what you set out to do, but you
learned from the experience. You learned another way how NOT to do the
thing that you are most trying to do. Then, would that be considered a
failure? Not at all. It would be considered a success. Thomas Edison
failed hundreds of times while trying to invent the light bulb. But he
didn’t see any of his tries as failures. He saw each “failure” as
learning yet another way NOT to create the light bulb. As he crossed off
each seemingly failure, it brought him closer to achieving his goal.

It’s all how you look at it. And the choice is always up to you.

So stop making excuses. Get out there and DO IT. Sure, you probably
won’t get it right the first time. Big deal! Who does? Just try it
again, and again, and again. Because eventually, you will get it right.
Remember the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try
again.”

ACTION POINT: Think about what excuses you are using that are holding
you back from living your life with purpose. And each time you find
yourself making an excuse, any excuse, STOP. Tell yourself, if I try it
and it doesn’t work out the way I want it to work out, I will start all
over again. I’ll just do it a little different because NOW I know the
way I tried it originally, doesn’t work. Cross that way off your list
and try the next. NO MORE EXCUSES.

Dawn Fields is a motivational speaker, author and coach. She has an amazing way of reaching you with her down-to-earth style and her ability to make the impossible seem possible. Sign up for her FREE weekly newsletter by sending a blank email to mailto:yourlifespurpose-subscribe@topica.com.