Let’s face it. If you’re not achieving the kind of results you had hoped to get with your life, maybe the reason doesn’t lie with other people. Put simply, you cannot blame other people for your lack of success.
Maybe it’s not a situation out of your control.
Maybe it’s not the fact that you weren’t born with advantages, maybe it has nothing to do with any of the common reasons you give yourself.
Instead, it may have everything to do with the excuses you choose to believe in.
You have to understand that you are always in control of your life. The only person who is truly responsible for your life is yourself.
Stop giving yourself any of the common excuses below. If you want to live a more consequential and, yes, effective life, you need to take control and take action!
Excuse #1: The Best Has Already Been Done or Taken By Others, So Why Even Try?
People who think this way believe that the world, and all the goodness in it, is like a giant pie. For a person’s slice to get bigger, somebody’s slice must necessarily get smaller. You have to remember that if you want to achieve the best, ‘the best’ is largely defined by you. The outcome that you get out of any effort is ultimately going to be judged by you.
When you say that the best is already taken by others, you’re just giving yourself an excuse not to try. You are assuming that there’s only a fixed amount of “the best things in life.” That’s not true.
You may come in third place and still think you did your best. That is good enough.
Stop robbing yourself of opportunities for victory by refusing to even try. Ultimately, whether you came in first place or not, what matters most, at the end of the day, all boils down to whether you selected a vision for yourself and did everything you could to achieve that vision.
That’s going to be the measure that you’re going to have to live with. That’s how you determine ‘the best.’ Sadly, thinking that ‘the best’ has already been taken is just an excuse to not even try.
Excuse #2: Even If I Do My Best, In The End, It Won't Matter.
When you constantly compare yourself to other people, don’t be surprised if you come out looking like a loser most of the time. This happens quite a bit. Why? You compare all the best things they have going for themselves with the worst things in your life.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be comparing.
If you feel that you’re in any way lacking or inadequate in a certain part of your life, you wouldn’t be comparing that part of yourself with other people. There would not be any need to.
This is why it’s a bad idea to think of ultimate outcomes in terms of comparison. Instead, you should run a race with yourself. You should ask yourself…
- Did I try hard enough?
- Did I believe in something badly enough to get off my ass and make something out of myself?
Excuse #3: Since No One Can Guarantee Success, Why Should I Bother?
Part of what makes life fun and exciting is the fact that there are no guaranteed outcomes. There is no assurance of victory. If everything was guaranteed and success was dished out on a silver tray to anybody who showed up, there would be no point to life. There wouldn’t be life at all as we currently define it.
What gives life value, excitement, and beauty is the fact that there is nothing you can take for granted.
Everything is up in the air. Everything is up for negotiation and everything can unfold at any time.
That’s why when you think that you should be guaranteed success for you to try, you’re just fooling yourself.
It doesn’t make any logical sense: if life success can be guaranteed, then it wouldn’t matter whether you tried or not. It will be delivered to you anyway. You see how this ‘logic’ works? Stop giving yourself this excuse for failure and mediocrity.
Excuse #4: Why Try When I've Failed So Many Times Already?
Your past does not define you. Just because you’ve failed 100 times before doesn’t necessarily mean that you are doomed to fail today. You must understand that there are a lot of very successful people who have failed many times before they made it big.
Andy Grove, the genius behind Intel semiconductor chips, started a lot of businesses and ultimately all went belly up. But ultimately, he came up with Intel and the rest, as they say, is history. Similarly, ‘Colonel’ Harlan Sanders of KFC fame failed with almost all the projects he tried in life. Later in life he started a chicken restaurant and once again, like they say, the rest is history.
Just because you have experienced disappointment and setbacks in the past doesn’t mean that they must define you. The only way to lose is to quit. If you keep trying to keep springing back up, and you give it your best, you are still in the game. You can still turn things around and achieve your dreams.
Excuse #5: I'll Become A Person I Hate If I Become Successful.
A lot of people are under the impression that they have to cheat for them to become rich. Many of them believe the poisonous idea that they have to somehow become perverted or degraded for them to achieve victory in their lives. These people have a very dismal view of victory. They think that becoming rich, powerful, and respected, all involve dirty tricks.
A lot of these people are under the impression that there’s only so much wealth in the world and all of this is basically inherited or passed from one generation to the other. If you were to disturb this process or come up with something new, it’s because you somehow, someway cheated. Well, not so fast.
When you look at most of today’s billionaires, most of them are self-made. Most of them came up with companies that produce solutions that didn’t exist before. They earned their money. To think that you will somehow have to become somebody worse, so you can become successful, is really giving the whole idea of success a black eye. Because if you think that way, then you automatically cast a negative light on everybody else was able to achieve natural success.
I’m talking about people who didn’t cheat their way to the top. They didn’t hurt other people to get what they wanted. Please understand that you can remain true to yourself even if you achieve success. In fact, if you develop integrity and make it your life’s focus, this makes success more probable.
You have to understand, when given a choice, most people would rather do business with somebody who they know will stick to their word. They would rather do business with people they know that would act with a tremendous sense of integrity. These are individuals who believe that their word is their bond.
You don’t have to become an evil person to become wealthy. You don’t have to become a person that you would grow to hate just because you have become successful. To continue to believe this excuse is really a form of self-robbery. You’re robbing yourself of time because you can start to invest time and effort in achieving success that highlights your best values and your true character.
Excuse #6: The Road To Success Might Damage My Relationships.
A lot of people are under the impression that their relationships are all positive. What if I told you that a significant chunk of your relationships are codependencies? These are people who basically want you to remain where you are, frustrated and feeling stuck. How come? It makes them feel better about their lives.
The same goes for your attitude about them. Again, it’s a codependent relationship. You know it’s unhealthy, you know it’s not doing anybody any good, but you stay in a relationship. Believe it or not, codependent relationships are all too common. And unfortunately, a lot of people use these relationships, as dysfunctional as they are, to give themselves an excuse to not put in the work, time, and sacrifice needed to achieve great success in their lives. They feel that they are going to be losing something if they put in the time, work, and effort to achieve great success.
You might want to look at the people you’re hanging out with. As the old saying goes, it’s hard to soar like an eagle if you’re surrounded by turkeys. If you surround yourself with losers, then don’t expect to become a winner overnight. How come? Well, losers talk like losers. They send signals to each other and hold each other down. The worst thing in the world for a loser is to come across a winner.
A winner sees life as a series of possibilities and as an endless series of adventures. This type of talk, and worse yet, these types of ideas, scare the stuffing out of losers. At that point, they really are left with two choices. Either they believe these and have to turn their back on the life that they have built up for themselves, or they reject this as false. What do you think they’ll do? Of course, they will take the path of least resistance!
They are lazy, but I’m not talking physically lazy. There are a lot of hard-working losers out there. Instead, they’re mentally lazy. Ultimately, if you want to reach the summit, you have to let go of the cave. You must turn your back on the comfort of the valley and climb up the path to the summit, which is filled with danger. There are all sorts of scary things along the path, but that’s what makes it exciting.
Unfortunately, losers have no way of knowing that. They couldn’t care less. They feed self-reinforcing lies to their friends. And if a friend of theirs decides to break free, that person is excluded. That person is no longer “part of us.” You have to be able to choose to break free because not all your relationships are good for you.
Excuse #7: I Have To Give Up So Much To Achieve Success.
Achieving any kind of success requires sacrifice. Ultimately, it boils down to a key question, “What am I going to have to give up to achieve the kind of life I want for myself?” This is not an option. You will have to give up something. You may be thinking that you’re just giving up time.
Well, think again.
Time is actually the most important and expensive asset you will ever get to own. Why do you think you even have a job in the first place? That’s because your boss is buying your time. Obviously, he cannot scale up his time, so he has to buy the time of other people. That’s how employment works. People trade their time for money.
We understand that if you are looking to achieve big things with your life, you must at the bare minimum sacrifice time. Are you willing to do that? Now, to correctly answer this question, you have to think about the situation like an investor. What kind of return am I getting from my current sacrifice of time? It doesn’t really matter what you do for a living, you’re already sacrificing a plan. That’s a given.
The question that you need to wrap your mind around is whether you are making the right sacrifices. Are you trading in your time for the most optimal results? Maybe If you invested time in that startup idea of yours, you would get a better return. Maybe that’s the way to go. So always look for what you’re getting for what you’re sacrificing.
Always understand that you were already sacrificing. This is not an option. It’s already happening. Instead, focus on the right question. “What am I getting for what I’m putting in? Is this the best that I can do?” If the answer is NO then, you can make better sacrifices.
Excuse #8: I Just Don't Have What It Takes To Succeed.
This is the ultimate cop out. You’re basically saying that if you’re faced with a challenge, you just don’t have what it takes. It’s like you’re playing a video game, and you just reach for a power button, and you shut down the box that you’re using. That doesn’t make any sense when you’re playing video games, and it doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to live your life.
Look at what you’re doing. Look at what your capabilities are. Understand that these are works in progress. Sure, you may not have the skill set right now to achieve great success, but that doesn’t prevent you from getting the right skill set in the future. It doesn’t prevent you from acting or trying.
When you say to yourself that you just don’t have what it takes, what you’re doing is you’re freezing your potential to what you have now. You’re basically allowing your limitations to define you, not just at this point in time. Instead, you’re allowing your limitations and inadequacies to define you forever. This is all you are and all you’re capable of becoming.
Is that what you really want for yourself? That’s what you’re really telling yourself when you keep repeating the phrase, “I just don’t have what it takes.”
Do you think people who achieve great success in life started out that way? Do you think they were born that way? Of course not. In fact, in many cases, they had far more disadvantages than you. What changed? Well, they decided to change. They decided to go for it. They decided to make the right sacrifices and to take on the right challenges. That’s how they ended up on top. And guess what? You can do the same.
Excuse #9: Success All Boils Down To Luck.
A lot of people have it in their heads that success really boils down to being at the right place, at the right time, doing the right things to produce the right results with the right people. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very appealing idea. Seriously, if we were to boil all of life down to just a simple matter of dumb luck, it will simplify life so much. Why? People don’t have to try.
Why do you have to put on your pants to go to work and put in effort? You don’t have to do that because it’s just a question of luck. Either it’s going to happen or it won’t. There’s nothing you can do about it. So the best thing you can hope for is to just sit back and do whatever you’re doing, and just hope for the best. In other words, you don’t have to change. You don’t have to work; you don’t have to risk anything.
This is the ultimate cop out. You’re basically insulting all the hard work people from all over the world do to better themselves or create better realities for themselves. You have to understand that life is not set in stone. The people you think are very successful now and who seem to have it together may not remain at the top
There are always ambitious people who are trying day after day, week after week, month after month to do whatever it takes or however long it takes to achieve the kind of life they demand from themselves. Ultimately, something has to give. Ultimately, they make it. And to think that this is all luck is really a a big disservice to yourself. The more you believe it, the more you will remain stuck. You just end up contenting yourself with one excuse after another.
Excuse #10: Some People Are Born To Win, And I'm Not One Of Them.
This type of thinking reduces the world into two camps: winners and losers. Well, what if I told you that today’s loser, can be tomorrow’s winner and vice versa? You have to remember that victory is a choice. To get that victory, you have to pay your dues. You have to put in the work and do whatever it takes for however long it takes. It’s not something that happens overnight.
Success requires time.
Most importantly, it requires you to challenge yourself, your ideas about who you are, and where you are in the world. In other words, it challenges you to change. To think that just because some people are “born to win,” that trying is not worth it. That is the worst form of copout.
It really is basically just telling yourself to not even try. Because you were not born with advantages. Let me tell you. If you read the biographies of some of the world’s biggest successes, most of them did not. We’re not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Far from it, in fact a lot of them. Dealt with the tremendous number of personal challenges. Still, they were able to make it to the top. If they can do it, you can do it too. The only difference between you and them are the excuses you choose to believe very single day.
Make no mistake, every single day you waste believing any of these excuses is a day wasted. Stop robbing yourself of the victory you could otherwise be enjoying by disabusing yourself of all these excuses. Identify these excuses in whatever form they may take.
Get rid of them.
Focus instead on today and your big vision for your life.
Give it everything you’ve got.
Resolve to become a more effective person.
