Because...

The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse.  ~Author Unknown
I think it is fascinating that the work I do with four year olds and the work I do with adults is virtually the same!  Being stuck, whether you’re four or eighty-four, boils down to excuses.  I happen to love excuses and I happen to love watching the people who make them.  It’s entertaining and many resonate with me!

1)      I caaaaaaaan’t!  This one is more effective if there’s a bit of a whine associated with it.  Realistically, there are very few things that can’t be done.  Most of the “I can’ts” in our lives are actually, “I won’ts!”  I challenge you to substitute, “I won’t” or “I choose not to” for a week just to empower yourself. Take can’t out of your vocabulary.

2)      It’s THEIR fault, not mine!  THEY make us late, make us angry, make us sad, and make us want to hit them, ruin our days and make puppets of us!  Here’s a little secret…we ALWAYS get to choose our responses no matter what THEY do to us!  Until we are in charge of our responses we are slaves to others.

3)      I’m too ______ (tired, old, young, little, big, thin, fat, tall, short, good, bad, clever, stupid, etc.).  As a high school dropout with two babies at eighteen years old, I had given up on an education.  I had received my G.E.D. and that was good enough.  I had a neighbor who was twenty-three at the time, much older than my nineteen.  She started nursing school and I was bewildered.  “Why are you starting nursing school at twenty-three?” I asked.  Her answer changed my life, “I’ll be twenty-five in two years, whether I’m a nurse or not!”  So this high school dropout now has a master’s degree.

4)      I’ll do it tomorrow!  Don’t over think it!  Like Nike says, “Just do it!”  Before you have time to talk yourself out of it, before you have time to really think about it, just roll out of bed and put those workout clothes on or write those few lines or make the calls.  Don’t worry; tomorrow there’ll still be plenty to do!

Excuses are passed down like trophies and jewels in families.  They bond the generations, “We don’t have money or health or success but we have each other.”  In some families this can actually be an underlying threat of being ostracized if there’s too much success.  So we take the excuses like great gifts, put our own little spins on them and get them ready to pass to our children.  We build our lives around them, choose our jobs and friends based on them, and the cycle continues. 

I challenge you to go one week as a free person… no excuses. Let me know how it goes!

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.  ~Jules Renard