When you really want something, you find a way. Otherwise, you make an excuse.
As it happens to some of us quite often, we lose most of our energy building excuses, trying to justify our current loser position. The excuses take different shapes and meanings and you can find them at any level, in any field. “Seekers of excuses” lose from their sight that this sport has no positive outcomes, many times affecting not only themselves but also the ones to whom they “sale” those excuses.
It is incredibly easy to position yourself in external locus of control and blame anyone and everything (parents, society, friends, education, lovers, etc.), than to closely and objectively analyze yourself. This will only make you live in your own lie.
Our projects are our dreams AND we are directly responsible for their follow-up. And it could be a productive practice for us to meditate on the stages of our projects. The setbacks we generate by ourselves during one stage of the project are, quite often, only “an excuse”. Of course that we do not see that we are the ones generating the setbacks, and of course that we like to consider that external factors are the ones generating the setbacks. We make promises that we cannot keep only to sabotage them with excuses at the end. We promise trust and then we self-sabotage our own believes through excuses. We promise support and then we let down others, through excuses. We promise to involve ourselves and then through an excuse we subtract ourselves from following-up through action. We give our word only to take it back latter, through an excuse. We make mistakes and instead of assuming it we try to excuse it, through an excuse.
The “excuses we use” will never generate trust and in time we will discover that we are alone, that nobody values our word anymore, that nobody asks for our support and help anymore. We observe that nobody wants to involve us in their projects and nobody opens their heart to us like they used to do.
“Excuses” sometimes involve other people who do not have a clue that they are main characters in the story of the excuse. “Excuses” show weakness and the destructive feelings generated harm the self-confidence, both for the person offering the excuses and for the person accepting the excuses. "I am a champion in excuses" becomes "I am a loser in actions".
When we hide ourselves behind excuses we became overwhelmed, we suffocate and sometimes we mix excuses together so badly, that we do not even realize when and how we use them anymore. Coming up with excuses becomes part of our lives; it becomes our dead engine of movement. “Excuses” make us inert because they give us the false impressions of a fresh breath: “I need a good excuse!”, “Tell me how to refuse!”, “I need to say something dramatic!” etc. We use them frequently, we stretch them and we live with the impression that “The excuse worked!” No, it did not work; it was accepted only to give you the necessary space not to follow-up with more excuses. Who likes hearing excuses? Who likes being let down through an excuse? People see, feel and react accordingly.
We say YES without thinking and then we hide it behind a NO dressed up in excuses. It is easier to look open to anything, than find our way out through an excuse.
We use “excuses” from the false impression that we could hurt by saying the truth. At first we put ourselves as savers and then we persecute through excuses and in the end we become the victims of our own excuses. “Excuses” make a vicious circle and only when we are willing to let them go we become able to get out of it.
“Excuses” get you nowhere, they do not represent action, and they do not represent progress. “Excuses” are masks used to transmit what we do not really want to say. “Excuses” do not make you stronger; they make you weak because they end up guiding you and your clumsy steps towards any objective. During your path you will give up and start again until you will find a new excuse. You will live this scenario a long time until you will get tired of not seeing any results. You will get tired from you own creations. You – the proactive one, will just be You- the inert one.
It takes balance, and sometimes the more we search for it, the more balance eludes us, as long as we keep coming up with excuses.
Try not to use “excuses” as an add-on, through coaching! Be pragmatic using Pragmatic Coaching resources.
Take a break and answer the following questions:
- In what contexts do you feel the need to use excuses?
- How could you replace the usual excuses?
- What benefits do you get from using excuses?
Once you answer, you may start your journey back to your inner locus and you might be able to continue your projects leading to results.
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