If you’re dead set on the path of escaping from your cage, then this is an absolutely critical lesson:
Stop Making Excuses
Stop. Right now. Make a commitment to yourself, to your future, and to any hope you have of ever being free to stop making excuses for your mistakes, shortcomings, or anything else that occurs in your life.
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” – Benjamin Franklin
If you make a mistake, admit it. If something bad happens to you, and it was your fault, don’t look for something or someone else to blame. The excuses need to end now. If you take nothing else away from this book but this one principle, it will have been worth the cover price a thousand times over.
Without free choice, you have nothing, but you can’t have free choice without accountability. Until you learn to stop making excuses you’ll never be more than a dumb animal in a cage.
The day you commit to quit making excuses is the day you experience your first taste of real freedom.
Take a look at the following list and tell me that you don’t make excuses in your life regarding at least one of these (be honest now):
- Bad Habits (smoking, swearing, excessive drinking, drugs, infidelity, promiscuity, gambling, etc.).
- Losing weight (or other facets of appearance).
- Work (getting something done, not quitting a shitty job, not taking a much needed vacation).
- Fulfilling a dream (learning something, doing something, going somewhere).
- Calling a friend, visiting family, having a life, or any other form of procrastination.
We all fall short of our ideals, due largely to our tendency to make excuses. Overcoming our propensity for excuse making is tricky, but the following steps will work wonders if you stick to them consistently.
Every day for the next week, at the end of each day, I want you to do the following:
- Grab a pen and a piece of paper.
- Mentally examine your day and ask yourself, “Did I make excuses today?”
- Write down each instance that day that you made an excuse, for whatever reason.
- Make a commitment that tomorrow, if you find yourself making an excuse, that you’ll simply take a deep breath and respond with a Yes or a No. That’s it, Yes or No. If pressed for a reason, just be honest.
- Rinse and repeat, day after day, until you’ve mastered this concept.
Making excuses is a bad habit, and I’d bet that most of us, if we’re being honest, are either making or have made excuses in our lives for something in the above list. Most of us make excuses daily.
