Stop Making Excuses and Start Achieving Success

Do you have trouble achieving goals? Do you start things but rarely, if ever, finish them?

What is stopping you? If you think about it, probably only you, maybe you’re scared, maybe you lack confidence.

The one word that stops most of us from achieving our highest level of success is "excuses."

As humans, we are fantastic at picking from a wide range of excuses to limit our capabilities. This is in all areas of our lives, from going to the gym to starting the new business.

If we’re ready to reach new heights in all areas of our lives and achieve our goals, then we have to STOP making excuses!

So why do we make excuses in the first place? There are many reasons why people make excuses. In fact, everyone has a variety of reasons for making them. However, we mostly only make excuses for the following key reasons:

• Fear of Failure
• Fear of Embarrassment
• Fear of Success
• Fear of Change
• Fear of Uncertainty
• Fear of Responsibility
• Fear of Making Mistakes
• Perceived lack of confidence or resources

So why is it important to stop making excuses? Our excuses are causing you to limit yourself.

They prevent you from reaching your full potential

When you make an excuse, you aren't even giving yourself a shot to succeed. You may never even know what you are capable of if you have an excuse for everything that comes your way.

Hold you back

Excuses can hold you back from a lot of things, including getting further in your career, getting healthier, and creating new relationships. They can limit you in every area of your life.

They keep you going on your same path without ever growing or branching out. Here are some specific reasons why it is important to stop making excuses.

Regrets

If you make an excuse to not do something, there is a big chance that you will end up regretting doing so. You don't want to look back on your life with a lot of feelings of "I wish..."

If you try something instead of making up an excuse to avoid it, there is a big chance that you will be glad you tried. If you sit back and do nothing, there is an equally big chance that you will regret not knowing how it would have turned out.

You’ll settle for less in life

This is complacency. If you make excuses to not move up in life, you will stay in a mediocre position that keeps you content at best. This laziness can lead to a very unfulfilling life.

You won’t challenge yourself

You may make an excuse because you don't want to have to put forth the effort to challenge yourself. But again, this will prevent you from growing in any way and will definitely prevent you from reaching any goals.

Keep us from growing

This ties into challenging yourself because you have to go through some challenges in order to grow. Your excuses help you live with the failed expectations that you already had for yourself.

So if you never expected yourself to grow in the first place, you certainly won't grow if you keep adding excuses to the mix.

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." - Benjamin Franklin

As harsh as that sounds, it’s probably not too far away from the truth. Sometimes we get so absorbed in making excuses about how things didn’t turn out the way we had expected, that we forget to focus on making the best of every situation — no matter what the outcome.

Just maybe, from today onward, we will remember Benjamin’s words and take them to heart. 🙂

I'd love to hear from you. So I want you to take some time to answer the questions below:

1) What's an area in your life that you continue to make excuses for? 

2) What specific excuses are you making regarding that situation?