Goliath-sized monsters wander inside all of our minds. Their main goal is to try to destroy every dream we have. If you want to become wealthy, you MUST learn how to kill these monsters in your mind. If you don’t, they’ll destroy your personality, character, and talents, and leave you crippled, old, and regretful that you didn’t do more with your life. These mental monsters also go by another name: They’re called Excuses.
Making Excuses to get out of things you’re supposed to be doing can kill your ability to build wealth and find your purpose in life. Excuses start as small innocent words, but this is how making too many excuses can grow these words into giant monsters that terrorize our lives:
It wasn’t until I married my husband that I realized how bad making excuses had become in my life. Getting married was what woke me up to reality, because I finally had somebody to call me out. I remember making daily excuses to my husband in the beginning of our marriage and I didn’t even know I was doing it. I’d regularly say things to him like this when he’d bring up new ideas for us to do:
“I don’t want to do it now, I’ll do it later…”
“It’s too cold, let’s go outside a different time.”
“That doesn’t look safe, we probably shouldn’t even try.”
I had become so comfortable and addicted making excuses NOT to try at life, that my mind had started to look like a madhouse full of mirrors. I didn’t know what was true anymore. I only knew what the excuses in my mind were telling me to believe.
Making excuses had caused me to lose track of myself. But my husband spotted my problem right away. He spotted my excuse-making because he had spent years destroying his own excuses, and he showed me how to beat the monsters in my own mind and find the way back to myself again.
Last night as I feel asleep, I had an epiphany about how badly making excuses has damaged my psyche over the years. For the last fifteen years, I feel like making excuses has kept me trapped in a mental prison where I’ve chosen to live in an “I can’t life,” rather than an, “I can life.”
My sickness with making excuses began when I was a child. Throughout my life, I have often struggled with fear: Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Fear of failing. Fear of looking like a fool. I became so afraid of my fears that I started making excuses to protect myself from my fears. I now realize that this caused me to become a victim of my own self.
Rather than confronting my fears and learning to overcome them, I fell into a bad habit of excuse-making so that I could avoid my fears altogether. I thought making excuses as to why I shouldn’t try new things would be easier to live with than my fears of failure.
But once I got married, I realized that it wasn’t fair for my husband to live with my constant excuse making behavior. He deserved a better version of me, and that’s what made me wake up and want to take control of my life again. I no longer wanted the excuses I was making to run our home.
Why Making Excuses is my #1 bad habit I am determined to fix:
Rather than pushing my life to the limits, and being fearless to explore the world and find myself, I always made an excuse why today wasn’t a good enough day to start the adventure. I’d get afraid of trying, and I’d make an excuse why tomorrow would be a better day to start. But the next day, the same thing would happen. I’d make another excuse why tomorrow, or next month, would be better. This excuse became a bad habit that led to years and years of me doing nothing with my life. I thought living in this protective bubble of excuses was safer than actually trying and failing. But in the end, I wasted years of my life because I was afraid, and chose excuses over trying.
One of my all-time favorite excuses was “I’ll do it later,” or, “another day will be better.” But I am learning that “Later,” or “Another Day,” is really a dream world that doesn’t exist. If you’re making excuses as to why tomorrow will be a better time to start your adventure to find your dream life, it’s a big sign that you’re living in the same madhouse mirror-maze of excuses and fantasies that I got lost in.
The way out of this sickness is to accept that “later,” though it sounds comfy, is really a fantasy that doesn’t exist. It is a hard pill to swallow. But now I understand that dreams don’t just happen. They only happen if you work, sacrifice, and create them every single day.
If you suffer from excuse making like I did, confront the monsters in your mind and tell them, “I’m not going to let you control my life anymore. I’m going to live my life to the fullest, and I don’t care what you think!”
I’ve come to the realization that nothing will automatically happen in life. You are the controller of your destiny. It’s up to you to create your purpose, and find your passions. That was such a sobering revelation when I first learned it. It was so hard to hear because I had to face the reality that I had been wasting most of my life living in a fantasy land of excuses. But the truth was, the perfect moment had been there waiting for me every morning when I woke up. Every day is a new day. It’s not about tomorrow. It’s about finding ways to make today be your new start.
This is the first step I have taken to kill my bad habit of making excuses:
I am forcing myself to view the world as a place of, “I can,” rather than, “I can’t.” I can explore and conquer. For the first time in my life, I am convincing myself that the world really isn’t a scary, dangerous place. I have lived in a world of fear too long! It’s time for me to live in a world that’s positive, optimistic and hopeful. All I had to do was change my thinking and my mind.
I am trying to become more hyper-aware of how I talk, think, and act. I am on a quest to find truth and reality, rather than getting lost in the madhouse maze of excuses I created in my mind. I need to become more aware of God’s voice in my life, and less aware of what my excuses want me to do.
I now examine every decision I make like a stone collector examining a gem under a magnifying glass. I am constantly asking myself: Am I making this decision because it’s in my best interest? Or am I making this decision because it’s easier to make an excuse and not try?
If you’re stuck in a prison like I was with my excuses, I implore you to learn from my mistakes. Ask yourself right now: Are you using the incredible power of your mind to find the purpose God created you for? Or are you using that power to create excuses so it’s easier to avoid your calling?
If you have too many excuses in your mind, now is the time to wake up. Later is a lie. It’s a monster. It’s a dysfunctional, cancerous fantasy that isn’t real. Now, is the only moment that is real. Take advantage of now. Now is real. If you really want to start creating your own path to wealth, NOW is the only answer you should know.
I am now performing daily surgery on myself to make sure I am mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. This is the only way to Ultimate Wealth.
The way to wealth, is by doing this daily surgery on yourself and removing all these horrible, wicked lies, one by one. Once you break free of your excuses, your true character can finally escape from the prison deep inside yourself. If you want to be wealthy, never, ever make another excuse again. Use today to live your life to the fullest, and don’t look back. It’s as simple as that.
If you’re wondering why we spend so much time writing about fortifying our mental strength when we write about creating wealth, read this post here: WHY WEALTHY MINDSET LEADS TO A WEALTHY LIFE.
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Ayuuupp. It’s a lot easier to make excuses when you have more to lose. Once we got out of credit card debt I’ve found we’re a lot more open to trying more “risky” or out-of-character things. I think it all starts with making ever-so-small changes or baby steps to get your toes wet. I definitely was surprised with how much I could do to save money. You’ll surprise yourself. 🙂
Thanks so much for commenting Mrs Picky Pincher! I love how you tied it into the financial issues we all deal with. I think you hit the nail right on the head. Alot of America’s debt issues come from the root cause of excuse making. That’s why we chose to write and publish this article. I read a quote recently that said, “We don’t fix money problems. We fix life problems, and then my money problems naturally go away.” I thought that was awesome, because that’s the key to any success, or turning any dream into reality. Fix yourself, and your life will automatically change for the better.
I admire your honesty, and the way you are going about turning around the thing you’ve identified standing between yourself and leading the life you want. The first step to fixing any problem is admitting its existence.
Thanks Lars for stopping in! We’ve found that in life, you can’t expect other people to be vulnerable and share their true personalities, until you first have the confidence to be vulnerable and share your own true issues. That’s why we chose to write from a place of honesty, because we know we’re not alone. Everyone deals with issues they have to overcome. That is the secret to experiencing a fulfilling life. Like you said, identify the issues you need to fix, and then find ways to overcome those issues to reach your goals. And the first step is just admitting your issues existence! Once you know your problem, you will finally know what problems you have to fix! Fix yourself, and find your dreams. That is the true path to wealth we try to lead people to experience.
This is great! Good for you for taking control of your future! What’s the old saying? Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right?
I have tried to start doing more things that I’ve never done before, because just like a scary vegetable, you may just end up loving it!
Thanks Steve. Oh man, this was a huge adjustment in our house when we first got married. My wife had a bad habit of excuse making, and she said I was like a machine gun man set out to destroy all the excuses in our house!!! You should have seen some of the arguments we had! But I was doing it all out of love, to try to help her overcome some of her bad habits that were the source of depression and holding her down. Remember, tough love, is still love! Now that it’s been 2 years, and there’s fewer excuses holding us back, it’s like our marriage has exploded toward a much better, happier, and understanding future. It all started with us deciding we weren’t going to have any time in our house for excuses no matter who was making them. I love your comment about the vegetables by the way. I am the excersize leader in our house, and my wife is the healthy eater leader in our house. I never ate vegetables before her, but you know what, she makes them for dinner every night now, and I actually like they way they make me feel! If I eat a pizza, I feel sluggish and lazy. But a bowl of vegetables and I am ready to go! Haha. Always try new things. Your life may change at any moment if you try something new, but misery will stick around as long as you make the excuses to keep it around. Peace be with you, friend.