Excuses

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

Ever been handed a task that you did not accomplish? I'm willing to bet you have. Did you have a good excuse as to why you didn't get it done? I know you did.

Excuses. We all make them. I've made enough excuses to cover 20 lifetimes and not one of them erased the fact that I screwed up. None of them covered my failures. There wasn't a single excuse that brought me happiness, peace of mind or any form of success.

Looking back I recognize that for every excuse I made I was sabotaging my future growth, development and success in an effort to avoid a moment's discomfort or humiliation. Instead of fessing up to the truth of the matter I chose to basically lie about the situation by blaming some outside circumstance or individual for my failure to do what I was supposed to do. 

You can argue with me if you want but deep down you know I'm right. Making excuses is no different than lying.

We externalize our failures to justify our failures. We blame others and exaggerate our situations as a means of saying "See? It's not my fault."

And isn't that what it all boils down to? Personal Responsibility?

Fault finding will always be with us so long as we refuse to take responsibility for our own actions. As Michael Jordan said ""I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."

He didn't say "I've failed over and over and over again in my life but it wasn't my fault. The other guy was guarding me too close." No! He admitted his failures and yet in doing so, it kept him moving forward so that he could reach the the highest level of success possible.

If you want to be a person of honor, integrity; if you want to be successful in whatever you choose to pursue; if you want to be trusted, respected; if you want to be better than most others, you have to drop excuses from your life. Just accept the accept the fault, tell the truth about it and get over it.

Don't fall victim to the mentality of "It's not my fault." Sure, if you think hard enough, you can almost always come up with a good excuse but excuses only go so far. Eventually, you will have to face the fact that you wasted your life making excuses for your faults while others spent their life achieving great things despite their faults.

Remember my mantra; Your life is your fault. (I cannot take credit for coming up with that but I am a firm believer in it. Thank you Larry Winget!)

Every single choice and decision you make leads you to you. And wherever you go, there you are. In other words, you assume the risk and the responsibility for each and every task and endeavor you take on, and thus, here you are. This is where you are in life. If you wanted to be somewhere else, then that's where you would be. It's all on you. No excuse can ever justify the the failures or shortcomings of the individual who assumes personal responsibility. Those individuals simply learned that when you screw up, do what needs to be done to be fixed or forgiven and move on towards your goal.

Do you want to be remembered for making great excuses or do you want to be remembered for being great?

Tommy