7 Excuses You Need to Stop Making

7 Excuses You Need to Stop Making

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” ~Jordan Belfort

What’s an excuse?

Here it is, as defined by the Dictionary:

Attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify.
Release (someone) from a duty or requirement.

Excuses are always a mask to an underlying problem stuck beneath the surface.

For some people, they truly believe in the lie of their excuse.

Others, they just don’t want the thing they make excuses about bad enough.

Here are the excuses you need to stop making if you want to succeed.

7 Excuses You Need to Stop Making

“I’m not into [good habit].”

Whenever women make statements such as, “I’m not a reader,” or, “I’m not into exercise” or any other “I’m just not into xyz” excuse, I inwardly cringe.

When you were a newborn baby, you weren’t into crawling, walking, solid foods, or talking yet, either.

But eventually you got to a place where you were into those things, because they helped you get what you wanted.

The same applies to good habit practices such as goal-setting, exercise, reading, etc.

Not into exercise? Alright then. You must not be committed to getting into shape.

That’s the real reason behind the excuse: You just don’t want it bad enough.

Like every other habit in the history of habits, you can learn to integrate any habit you desire into your daily routine.

But that takes the discipline to start and the commitment to achieve what you want.

The desire has to be stronger than the excuse.

Related:

“I don’t have time.”

The question here isn’t, “Do you have time?”

It’s, “Are you making time?”

You are in control of your schedule.

Everyone (including Beyoncé, or whoever your favorite does-it-all public figure is) has the same 24 hours in the day that you do.

If you commonly use the excuse that you “don’t have time” as to why you cannot pursue that thing you want to do, I’d like you to consider these questions:

Are you in control of your schedule, or is your schedule in control of you?

Let me explain…

Is your schedule full of priorities that serve your purpose or do they serve the purpose of others?

I’m not suggesting you abandon the needs of your family. What I am suggesting is to consider the purpose behind what’s on your schedule.

Are you getting roped into things you’re really not into because you don’t want to let others down or because you feel obligated?

You cannot make the time to achieve your goals if you allow feelings of obligation to control your schedule.

As a rule of thumb, don’t schedule anything without at least a week’s notice. This keeps you from overscheduling yourself.

How are you spending your time?

You’re “so busy” but then by 7pm you’re camped out on the couch in front of the TV? I hate to break it to you, but there is generally some sort of trade-off when it comes to making time for your goals.

The woman who “made it” doing that thing you want to do? She had to trade her time spent watching TV, that extra hour of sleep, joining her friends for happy hour, etc, to pursue her goal.

I have had to grudgingly turn down invites to dinner, fun outings, vacations, you name it-all for the sake of achieving a few specific life goals.

All of that stuff is great, and I definitely get FOMO, but when it comes down to it, I made the decision that I want my goals achieved more than I want anything else.

I’m not suggesting you never have fun or take a vacation again. But I do believe there are some seasons in life where in order to see goals achieved, we have to make a trade-off.

Related:

“I’m not capable/enough.”

This one hurts my heart and hits close to home.

I’m the [former] poster child of “I’m not enough.”

From a young age, certain incidents or things people said to me shaped the beliefs about myself, and not for the better.

I had zero confidence in myself and hid from any opportunity I was interested in.

In high school, I was in choir. By the time junior year rolled around, you had to audition to get into an advanced choir. I did audition for the advanced co-ed choir and got in (it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done), but I didn’t audition for the show choir-something I secretly longed to be apart of from a young age.

Why didn’t I audition?

Because I believed I wasn’t enough. I knew I was a good dancer, but I didn’t believe I had a good voice and I definitely didn’t think I was pretty. And while being pretty wasn’t technically a requirement of show choir, everyone knew they didn’t judge solely based on talent.

Truth be told, had I auditioned, I don’t think I would have made it-even if I had confidence in myself.

But I’ll never know, because I never tried.

What am I getting at here?

You are enough, and you are capable.

No matter what you’ve gone through or what you’ve been told, you have to believe that.

Believing in yourself is the first step. You’ve got to re-frame your beliefs about yourself.

This is why personal growth is a significant part of my life-I’ve retrained my brain by everything I’ve learned from books, podcasts, conferences, etc.

I’ve replaced all the garbage I was told growing up or by ignorant people and replaced it with the truth of who I am.

Related:

“I can’t pursue my dream and still be a good [your life role]”

You cannot spend your whole life living only for others.

I don’t believe you should jump ship on your family and children, but I do believe its okay that you might have to miss out on some time with them.

It’s okay to put yourself first when you need to.

Related:

“I’m afraid to fail.”

Join the club.

Nobody wants to fail. But it happens.

You need to understand the beauty in failure before you can let go of this excuse and prevent it from stopping you.

Experiencing failure shapes our journey.

Experience is the best teacher, and to fail is part of experience.

90% of first-time businesses fail, but then 90% of second-time businesses make it. The sad part of this statistic is, 80% of the first-time businesses that failed don’t try again.

Not trying at all or not trying again is probably the biggest failure of all because you’ve already made up your mind that you’re a failure.

Stop believing this about yourself.

Related:

“It’s been done before.”

You’re right, it has.

I was so inspired by all I’ve learned from personal development, that I wanted to center my blog around it in order to reach other women and transform their lives the way my life was transformed.

There are countless others who did it before me, but so what?

It’s not a competition. I’m grateful for the women with their successful online businesses in the personal development niche, because in the midst of all the women they’re inspiring is me, too.

Not to mention, when you watch someone do what you want to do, you learn how to do it from them.

You just have put your own unique spin on it.

It may have been done before, but no one can do it like you do.

Related:

“What will other people think?”

This is another one that I struggle with.

When I started my blog, I was scared to tell anyone about it or give them my URL. My husband and a few close friends had seen it, but that was it.

Putting yourself out there is scary.

But you know what I came to realize?

There’s not one person out there who’s reached success, doing what they want to do, who doesn’t have at least one person judging them.

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be controlled by what other people think of my work.

I don’t want that to stop me from taking this dream out of my heart and into my hands, so I can share it with others.

Even if I’m at the mercy of potential judgment from select individuals.

It’s been a process, but I’ve had to work on letting that go.

You should, too.

For every negative, judgmental person, there’s 100 more that are going to love you.

Related:

Before You Go

Behind every excuse is a deeper, underlying issue that must be resolved if you ever want to experience more for your life.

It’s like the old saying goes, “Excuses are like butts. Everyone has them, and they all stink.”

A juvenile statement, perhaps, but true nonetheless.

What excuses do you need to drop in order to experience more?

Let me know in the comments below.

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Lisa

Hi! I'm Lisa. I help women live purposeful, fulfilling and joyful lives. I'm happily married and a fur mom to two boxers and two rabbits. I love Jesus, freelance writing, fitness, personal development, reading books, football, cross-stitching, and video games.