The 7 Biggest Excuses That Keep You From Success…

Seven is a lucky number right?

I pretty much could have chosen the number 10 zillion because this list could honestly be excuse after excuse. I suppose I could also flip that around and have exactly one thing on this list.

The single biggest excuse that prevents you from succeeding….drumroll….

Accepting an excuse!

But hey, that would be boring and I may be a lot of things in this world, like stubborn, exceptionally handsome, witty, charming, hysterically funny, wait~ this is a different list.

Back to excuses: I chose 7 for a reason.

Seven is lucky, seven is sexy, and yep, seven is what made this list happen.
So here we go…

Feel free to grab a can of cheese pringles and a coke, this ride is gonna be yummy and entertaining.

Many good hearted, well intentioned people get side tracked in life with excuses— Maybe they feel stuck or that they cannot go after a better job, start their own business, or take whatever risk because of… whatever it might be.

Excuses are like those dirty gym socks you found in the back of your truck, we all know they stink. For some reason though, we just accept them as part of life.

Why on earth do we do such a ridiculous thing, and trust me, we have ALL done it at some point.

The real trick is to recognize that dirty sock when it starts to bark with some stench, yank it from its happy nesting place and wash it clean of your world.

BE GONE smelly sock, you and your buddy Mr. Excuse can check out now. Here are just a few of the excuses I hear roaming around on this side of the grass—

These are random, I pretty much just organized them as the pathetic memory of them danced around in my grey-matter. You will recognize a few I bet..

1.  I don’t have the time~

Seriously?

Well let me go ahead and get some fancy balloons for your one-person pity party.

We started our business with 4 kids under the age of 6.

Last time I checked, time is the single most equalizing factor in the universe.
We all have the EXACT same amount of time each and every day. In fact, I will politely remind you that you have the same amount of time as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah (yep, now this is getting serious, I just mentioned Oprah).

Take a good long gander at where you are spending your time. Why?

Because we ALWAYS make time for what is important to us. So this excuse is never really about time, its about priority.

Those are very different things my friend, do not allow yourself to buy into the life of limited time. There are very few commitments in this life that are truly non-negotiable. I dont have time really means, I don’t want it bad enough! ….or some other deep imbedded issues.

I don’t have time to go on and on here…. moving forward.  😉

2. I don’t have the money~

My lack of sensitivity really kicks in on this one.

I should have made it number one since it is my favorite but for some reason #2 made me laugh like a 5 year old in line for the bathroom at school so it found its home here.

I have heard this excuse from people all over the spectrum of income. Whether it be the broke single mom scraping by making ends meet to the dude making a small fortune and turning around spending every dime at the Casino.

Whatever the path, this excuse comes at me non-stop. The point is, you can make this excuse whether you’ve got one dollar or one million.

The folks who muscle past it, however, are the ones who succeed. These champions find a way around it or over it.

They start a side gig and save up. They cut their expenses. They borrow from a friend or family, take out a loan, sell something they own, they add a shift, the hit up fiverr and perform a few tasks.

Whatever the case…they find a way!

Successful people don’t let the lack of any resource, especially money, keep them from making magic happen.

3. I’ve never done this before~

Perfect, neither had we!

Let me just hit snooze her for another 8 min.

Wake me when this borefest is over.

Seriously, there are tons of things you have succeeded at that you have never ever, not one single time, done before.

So shut the front door Alice, this is no different.

You never walked before you did, you never swam before you got in the water, you never rode your bike till you hopped on and took off.

Every journey out there starts with the same decision: to do it.

Stop and think about that for a second. Every single thing you have ever “learned”, you did it not knowing how to before you did… seriously, everything. “un-snooze”.

4. I could never be as good at (blank) as (blank) is~

Okay, so maybe you are right?

Note, I say maybe…. But…. the almighty BUT, gotta love that word…..

Maybe, just maybe, you will still be freaking awesome?

So yea, just because I will never be Babe Ruth, does not at all mean I don’t love the crud out of playing baseball nor does it mean I am no good at it.

I find it almost insultingly simple that we take the highest level of anything, comfortably compare ourselves to that, then accept that since we cannot possibly be the best, that second best or even 100th best is not worth the effort.

I mean, really?

Last time I checked there were about a bazillion (yes, that is a fictitious number based on a fictitious fact check analogy I am in the process of describing) successful coffee joints in this country.

Its almost as if we bleed a smooth dark hazelnut roast these days.

Do you think all those successful, vibrant, community rooted places looked at Starbucks and said, “ welp, no sense in opening a coffee shop today Gilbert, Starbucks already has the market cornered.”

Nope, they sure did not, and thankfully so.

Why then do we buy into the lie that if we cannot be the best, there is no room left?

In a very macro big box store type of world, we see small mom and pop shops still acting as the glue that holds communities together. This should speak volumes to our instinct.

First is awesome, but there is so much room on that numerical list….

5. I don’t have the skills~

Yep, I can’t speak Spanish.

You know who can?

…Google translate.

I Have no clue how tall Napoleon was.

You know who does?

Google.

I was not sure how to make the seat belt chime shut up in my Jeep, but you know who did?

Youtube.

Ah, see you were reading fast as if you were bored and I mixed it up on you. Now, guess who owns youtube.

One word for you my friends: Google. Gotcha!  🙂

I honestly believe with all my coal hearted soul, that you can learn every single thing you ever need to know on the internet.

You can find instructions, tutorials, videos, definitions, how to’s….ANYTHING. And the best part, it’s almost all FREE!

You can learn a trade or get a college level education just from the information overload you have available at your fingertips.

So trash the notion that a fancy piece of paper saying you have a degree is preventing you from having what you want, it’s simply not true. Any skill is available to us all, you simply have to take responsibility to go learn!

6. Timing is bad, I need to wait a bit~

Waiting for things to be perfect is maybe the worst possible excuse, because things will never be perfect.

No one is going to come along with a stopwatch and say, “If you start… NOW! You’ll succeed!”

Its kinda like having kids. If you wait till the “right” time to have kids guess what, you will NEVER have kids because there is never a “right” time for that!

Plenty of things were started at the “wrong” time or before the world was ready.

Yep, some of them failed, but…. some succeeded beyond anybody’s wildest dreams.

Waiting for the “right conditions” is like the fisherman sitting on the banks, waiting for the fish, but never putting his hook in the water — point being, that is absolutely pointless.

7. (blank) says that I can’t or shouldn’t or that this is a bad idea~

One of my least favorite things in life is watching people chew on the excuses someone else feeds them.

I mean really, here you are listening to your uncle Bill give you crap about trying something new that he is certain will fail.

After all, you look up to uncle Bill and his pizza delivery job and hist 1984 mobile home.

Seriously?

Why do we let people have that influence on us?

Take advice from people you strive to be like, not from those you do NOT want to replicate.

If I want Uncle Bill’s advice, I will ask him if stuffed crust is better than thin crust, the rest of influence in my brain I will leave to leaders who are already awesome at what I want to do.

Here’s the thing: nothing amazing, innovative or revolutionary ever came out of a group consensus.

In fact, many of the most truly revolutionary ideas were met with a great deal of hostility and skepticism.

That cell phone thing is just a fad.

The Internet will never catch on (unless you are Al Gore).

Who wants to be on social media all day long?

The truth is, people are going to disagree with you.

They won’t get your vision. They won’t believe in you and if we are completely honest, its because most of them have failed and misery loves company.

Who cares?

Only one person needs to believe in what you’re doing when you start…and that’s you.

Welp, that about does it for now.

These are just some of my favorites excuses I have heard, but they’re certainly not the only ones.

I’d dig your feedback on this list. What excuses have you heard? Or maybe you have used an excuse that’s held you back from success?

Feel free to share some wisdom of the all powerful EXCUSE!