Excuses for failure, excuses about your choices in life, excuses about what you feel you have accomplished fuel dysfunctional thinking – and consequently, undesirable actions and behaviors. Making excuses instead of taking one hundred percent responsibility for your actions, your thoughts, and your goals is the hallmark of people who fail to succeed.
Part of the power of taking responsibility for your actions is that you silence the negative, unhelpful voice in your head. When you spend your thinking time on success and goal accomplishment, instead of on making excuses, you free up the emotional space formerly inhabited by negativity.
The next time you catch yourself making an excuse, whether for the late project, the unmet goal, or the job you work, gently remind yourself - no excuses. Spend your thought time planning your next successful venture. Excuses just fuel failure. Positive thinking becomes a helpful habit.
Also don’t pretend that your decisions are being made for you. People say or think “I have to” or “I need to” far too often. Often when we don’t want to choose, we allege necessity, treating inner forces and constraints as outer. But that’s another attempt to avoid responsibility.
To change what’s wrong in your life, you must believe you’re the one in control. Don’t blame, complain, or criticize. Accept full responsibility for everything in your life, whether you caused it or not; even external problems can have internal solutions. Taking responsibility for your life will empower you, foster success, and heighten self-esteem, all of which lead to increased Happiness.
Think of yourself as a creator, not an acceptor. An owner, not a victim. Accept responsibility for who you are, who you will become, the choices you make, and the consequences that result. Hold yourself accountable. The only way we can truly be happy is to realize that our thoughts, emotions, actions, and decisions are our responsibility and no one else’s.
That is a beautiful thing. No more excuses. No more blame. Just the choice to take our power back and start living and loving our lives.
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” ~George Bernard Shaw.
Source article 1: Susan M. Heathfield
Source article 2: Tom Murcko
Source article 3: Lindsey Kasch