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Blame is just another word for "excuses"

Do you know who is holding you back from achieving your dreams and goals?

Have you ever stopped to consider that the only reason you aren’t doing what you said you wanted to, is because you don’t really want to.

You aren’t doing all that you can, or being all that you can be – because YOU don’t want to.

You’re happy where you are. Oh I don’t mean that you are “happy” and you have a smile on your face. You are happy because blaming other people means you don’t have to take any responsibility for your actions..

Unless you live in a dictatorship, you have total control over your thoughts and your actions. No-one but you can determine what you are going to think, say, eat and do.

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.

Near the end of Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon lists what he named “57 Famous Alibis by Old Man IF.” And he writes that “People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be air-tight alibis to explain away their own lack of achievement. “Some of these alibis are clever, and a few of them are justifiable by the facts. But alibis cannot be used for money. The world wants to know only one thing—HAVE YOU ACHIEVED SUCCESS?”

If you would like to have your very own copy of this classic book - you can get your copy here. And the good news - all you pay is the postage.

Well to bring Napoleon Hill’s book right up to date, here are a few of my favourites:

If I had more time

If I had more money

If the kids/spouse weren’t so demanding

If I had some help around the house

If I didn’t have so much homework/housework

If I didn’t have such a demanding boss

If I didn’t have to take junior to soccer practice I could do ….

If I had more money I’d be happy

If I had time to exercise I wouldn’t be so fat

If conditions were different

If I could just live my life over again I would…

If I’d known about this last week (month, year)

If I’d taken the opportunity when I was first offered it

If only I were younger, thinner, smarter…

If only things were better at work…

If I could just get out of debt I could…

If I hadn’t tried and failed before…

There are a million excuses we can use as to why we haven’t gotten to where we thought we were going to be, or thought we should be, and by the time we get to the end of our lives we will have used them all, to justify why we haven’t achieved “success”.

First and foremost I would like to dispel a myth or two. You will always find time to do what you need to do, and more importantly want to do.

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

Interesting isn’t it.

We all find time to watch the movie, or go to the ball game, but we can’t find the time to read the books that will educate ourselves, or take the classes that will give us the skills that we need to take our businesses to the next level. That to some people is “study” and who wants to study, we did that when we were at school didn’t we.

Let me dispel another myth for you right here.

The formal classes give you the basic grounding and the information that you need. But unless you put that information to use, it will only remain as information, it will never become “knowledge”.

Since leaving school and later university, I have read hundreds of books, papers, articles, research reports. Why? Because I want to brag about it? Well no, that’s not the reason. Because I want to show off my information gathering skills? No, that’s not it either.

So why do I read so much?

Well the first is for pleasure. Remember what I said about finding time to do what you want to do? Well reading for me is something that I want to do.

The second reason is that the information someone has taken the time to gather up and place in one book can take me to places I’ve never been to before, I can meet people who I could never get to meet otherwise, I can hear their wise council and I can try and add their wise council to the way that my life and the life of my family turns out. Now don’t get me wrong, some books bore me rigid, I still can’t read books on economics, or a profit and loss statement without getting hopelessly confused, which probably explains why I am still struggling with money and need outside advice. But I know that if I didn’t read as much as I did, then my life would be far less richer than it is now.

So what excuses are you currently using to explain why you aren’t doing as much or as well as you should.

By the way, everyone can see through the blame game and 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.

We can choose to blame other people for where we are and what we do; or we can take responsibility for our own actions.

We can choose to do what we have always done, or we can choose to do something different,

We can choose to work hard on what we say we want to achieve, or we can sit in front of the television and drink beer all night.

The choice as they say is ours. And it is entirely up to us how we allocate our time and who we allocate our time to. No-one can make us do anything we don’t want. After all we don’t live in a dictatorship (thankfully). Only you can decide to change, no one can do it for you.

You may decide to buy a gym membership so that you can achieve your goal of getting fit and lose some body fat. Whilst this is a good start, you still need to “go to the gym” on a regular basis for this to happen.

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.

The choices that you make on a daily basis can have a major effect on where you end up at the end of this year, in 5 years, in 10 years.

Don’t believe me? Well imagine that you pick up a cup of take away coffee from the drive through coffee shop. Yes it’s a habit, and one that you are not ready to give up just yet. You may also have noticed that over the months and the years that you’ve been picking up the coffee (and the occasional muffin or bagel) that the waistline on your trousers has gotten tighter, and your bank balance always seems to be low for some unknown reason.

Well the reason is because you spend your money a few dollars at a time, we don’t think it’s so bad, whilst you may baulk at spending $800 in one go, a few dollars a day doesn’t seem to matter. By the way $3 x 5 days x 48 weeks in a typical working year = $720. Just as gaining the odd pound or two over a year doesn’t seem that bad. But a few years of that and you will need to buy a bigger size of clothing.

3. Limit your association with those people who try and validate your excuse list.

Assuming you do want to get more out of every day it is important to find the blame list and to throw it in the bin. You are totally responsible for every thought that you have, every word that you speak and every action that you take. You see, they want as many excuses to not do something as you do. And they want us to justify their actions as being OK. Well if they want to continue to live their lives running from one crisis to the next or from one drama to the next, let them. If you are willing to accept responsibility for every action that you take, no matter how small, you can hardly blame them for wasting your time, only you can decide how you are going to spend those precious minutes or hours that you have been allocated today.

Remember you can always get more money – you cannot get more time. This is the only chance you have of living today, so what are you going to do with it? Are you still happy to continue wasting it with people who need to make excuses as to why they aren’t getting on?

No, me neither.

4. Understand that frustration is a call for ACTION and not an excuse to go and find a corner and sit in it.

We all get frustrated from time to time. However, those people who are looking for an excuse will seize frustration by the hand and use it to explain why they haven’t managed to do whatever it was they were supposed to do.

We get frustrated because we haven’t found all the answers, or we know what we have to do, we just don’t want to do it.

Frustration should not be a brick wall that you bang your head against, but another chance to see if there is a shortcut somewhere hidden close by. We may have closed our eyes and our minds to all the options open to us, consequently we fail to see the ladder leaning against the wall. That ladder could be a person who can help us, or a book that we can read.

MMM1 MMW1

Every now and then I catch myself falling into the habit of blaming something or someone for my actions. Sometimes I know things ARE out of my control - it's how you deal with the "problem" that is the key to overcoming the procrastination habit of BLAME.

Take last night for instance - I was out and about to meet someone, we were due to have a drink and some dinner. For once I didn't have to cook and I was going to enjoy my night out of the kitchen. One of my kids was at college and would be finishing around 9.30, the other was at work and due to finish about half an hour later and the difference between the two meant the second child wouldn't have to wait while I was off picking up child the elder.

All was good - until I get a phone call.

"Mum, can you come and pick me up...work have sent me home, cos I'm not feeling very well"

"I'm not at home, how sick? Can you catch the bus?"

"Well I could, but I don't have my keys so can't get in"

To cut a long story short and several telephone calls later, I was on my way home to pick up the sick child and take him home, then I would turn the car around and meet my friend at a mid point venue instead of where we were going to meet.

Could I blame my son for being sick, forgetting his keys and making me change my plans? Of course - but was it his fault?

Actually I don't think so. The rationale behind the lack of keys was a simple one - he was being picked up after work and I had a set of keys - why would he need his? Given the bus would have arrived a long time after I had picked him up, taken him home and dosed him with medicine - it was probably a good thing I drove home. OK it put an extra hours worth of driviing onto my day - but you get that sometimes being a parent.

When you start to look at how you react to changes in plans, when you start to look at why people feel justified in blaming others for the reason why they can't do something - then you can begin to look at ways you can overcome the procrastination habit.

• Do you know who is holding you back from achieving your dreams and goals?
• Do you put your families, partners, spouses and even some of your friends needs before your own.
• Do you feel hard done by because you never seem to get anything in return from these same people?
• Do you feel anger and resentment towards them for holding you back. Have you tried to point out the fact that you’ve always done this and that for them, and all you got is a set of rolling eyes and muttering. 

Do you remember a time when it wasn't like that? Do you remember all those ex-partners, selfish people they were, who decided that you weren’t good enough, or pretty enough and left you for someone else. I don’t know about you, but I know I’d be pretty and skinny if I had the time to spend on making sure I put me first all the time.

Typical isn’t it – no-one cares about you and your problems, they don’t care that you sat up half the night doing things for them. They don’t care that you’ve spent all your time and money on them and what do you get in return – NOTHING.

And don’t get me started on the people at work, or the state of the government. I mean if it wasn’t for them I’m sure we’d all be self-made millionaires living the life of luxury, doing what we wanted, when we wanted to do it. But no, life just isn’t fair, and no-one gives a stuff. Do they?

Do you have the time, or the money to do what you want? Of course you don't. Just when you think you’re getting ahead, something else comes along and takes any spare cash or time you had scrimped and saved for.

Do you have the time to go to a gym or do some form of exercise? Or do you get exhausted just thinking about it?And just when you might consider going for walk – the weather is disgusting, I don’t know about you – but you just can’t win can you.

Or can you?

Have you ever stopped to consider that the only reason you aren’t doing what you said you wanted to, is because you don’t really want to.

Read that again.

You aren’t doing all that you can, or being all that you can be – because YOU don’t want to.

You’re happy where you are. You are comfortable in your whiny guilt making world. Have you ever stopped to consider why people don’t come to visit you anymore, or call you on a regular basis? Or are you the kind of person who has “friends” who call to whinge about something or someone, you’re happy playing the blame game.

Oh I don’t mean that you are “happy” and you have a smile on your face because the sun is shining and the kids are outside playing. You like to live in the past, reliving your old hurts and blaming them or it for where you are right now, because it’s comfortable blaming someone else, that way you don’t have to take responsibility for your actions.

But I was sick, I was hurt, I was in pain, if it wasn’t for them I’d be…

WAS. Stop living in the past, and get on with living today – right now.

Today is the only day you have if you stop and think about it. Who knows what might happen tomorrow.

YOU are the person holding you back. That’s right – YOU ARE.

Unless you live in a dictatorship, you have total control over your thoughts and your actions. No-one but you can determine what you are going to think, say, eat and do.

When I found out that I was totally responsible for where I was in my life, and the decisions that I had made, I was disappointed in myself for allowing my poor thinking to control my life. I’m not saying that it is easy to change the habits of a lifetime, because it’s not. But knowing I am responsible does make it easier to accept that I have total control over my future.

So today you have a choice, you can either take control of your destiny and do something about yourself and your circumstances, or you can continue to play the blame game. The choice as they say is yours.