Get rid of the blame list

Welcome to today's issue of The Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine. The e-zine of Motivateme: Breaking the Procrastination Habit. http://www.motivateme.info. We would like to thank you in advance for forwarding this issue onto family, friends and any other interested readers.  Please note all back issues of this newsletter are available from - http://www.motivateme.info/ezine-archive/

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Over the last couple of days we have been discussing ways to get more out of every day, with preparation, planning and task lists. However, these kinds of techniques only work for a short time. Sooner or later you will slide back into old ways of doing things.

Old habits die hard, and yes they do. We have reached the points we are at in our lives by allowing those habits to creep up on us and share our journey. Most of the time we don't even know we have them. We just know that when things start to get a little bit harder, we abandon the new ways of working for the old.

Do you want to know the biggest culprit when it comes to sliding back into back habits?

The answer is blame.

Blame is another word for excuses.

Blaming something or someone else for our lack of progress is far easier than acknowledging that we've made a mistake or two, or not done as much as we could have or more importantly SHOULD have done. We don't want other people to know we've been lazy so we blame others, or our circumstances.

• I don't have time,
• I'll do it when the kids leave home, 
• If they didn't give me so much homework i could do all my chores,
• If the boss hadn't asked me to do another report on so and so I could have done....

 You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

By the way, everyone can see through the blame game, the excuses list. More often than not, they can see through it because they are using the same kinds of excuses for not doing whatever it is they should be doing. And by doing so they validate your reasons for wasting time, just as you validate theirs. I suppose you could call it a support network in reverse.

Instead of telling you to get on with it, or encouraging you to try something a little differently, they say things like "Oh I know, it happened to me, I mean it's just not fair is it?"

So if you want to get more out of every day you need to find the blame list, and you need to throw it away.

You also need to:

1. Take responsibility for every action that you have made so far, and those you are about to take, no matter how small.

2. Acknowledge that every decision has an effect on what you do and the next set of choices that you are faced with. And then accept the consequences of those decisions.

3. Limit your association with those people who validate your excuse list. Of course if you want to continue along the same path then let me know and I will unsubscribe you from this newsletter too, because nothing I will say will make you change your mind. Only you have the power to think differently and to act differently.

4. Understand that frustration is a call for ACTION and not an excuse to go and find a corner and sit in it. Only then will you truly be able to get more out of every day, why? Because you will only have yourself to blame.

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