Excuse, me Yoda

Excuses, the root of all evil?

How many times have you asked someone a question and they've invested more energy into explaining why something happened than they did on answering?

Why does that happen?

There's no more meaning to the question than the meaning you put on it.

Have you ever been asked a question and you've presumed that the reason you're being asked is because of an underlying subtext? How did that feel? Did you feel like you needed to defend yourself and explain why?

Maybe there was subtext, maybe there wasn't. Maybe it was appropriate to explain the context, maybe you were making yourself feel better about some hidden meaning you thought existed behind the question?

Excuses are the transference of responsibility from ourselves to someone else or an object.

"I was late this morning because my car broke down"

"I was late this morning because I ignored some warning signs that my car was about to break down"

"I was late this morning because I ignore warning signs that my car was struggling and chose to spend my money on a new TV that was much more fun than fixing my car"

Everything in life is a choice and it's important that we accept that about ourselves. We choose what is important to us. We choose our actions and we have a choice over everything that goes on in our lives.

We choose not to address the way that people talk to us. We choose not to ask others questions that will mean we fully understand the remit of our tasks, and leads to wasted effort. We choose to accept the status quo. We choose whether to learn and develop. We choose whether to implement those learnings in our life.

We choose whether to remain comfortable, or challenge ourselves to grow.

Excuses make ourselves feel better. They justify our (in)actions to ourselves to protect our ego. This is why we hear the subtext of others' questions: because of our guilt about the excuses we're telling ourselves for the choices we've made.

If excuses prevent us from taking responsibility for our actions then they also prevent us from learning from our failures. Not learning from our failures means we don't develop as quickly. By choosing to excuse, we are choosing comfort. Comfort is stagnation.

"Do. Or do not. There is no try", Master Yoda

"Can I get that information by the morning?"

"I'll try"

Is there a pen, pencil or phone near you? Put it in front of you. Try and pick it up.

What happened?

Did it stay sitting there? Or did you pick it up?

Either way... You either chose to pick it up, or you didn't. You can't try and pick something up.

When someone says "try", what are they saying around that word? "I might not be able to because..."? What's that? That's the lead-in to an excuse. "Try" is an excuse waiting to happen: a "pre-excuse"

You either will, or you won't. You either can, or you can't. You either choose to, or choose not to.

Move past excuses and you'll find yourself levelling up your success.

What is successful?

Get a pencil and paper and draw a picture of you being successful. What does it include? A nice house? A nice car? A family? Friends? Sunshine? A beach? A boat?....

How do you feel in the picture? Happiness? Contentment? Relaxed? Calm? At peace?

Is success the boat or the relaxation?

It might be different for you, but success to me has always been how I feel, and how I perceive myself rather than what I can purchase or own. At least some people seem to agree with this because we hear about unhappy billionaires, footballers, international superstars.

Be careful to define your level of success. It might not be what you expect. What is "rich"? Is it ￡1m? So not ￡5m? Or ￡10m? Is success "having more than our parents did"?

Sometimes we can fall into the trap of seeing a path in front of us that we didn't define ourselves. Being promoted to our manager's position, buying a bigger house, buying a faster car... These are all normal symptoms of success and progression. However, they might not be right for us.

Are you living your own goals, or the goals of those around you? Do you feel pressure from friends and family to work in a certain role, to earn a certain amount of money, to be particular type of person?

I've seen sales people chasing "sales management". They don't realise that this will lead to earning less, and significantly change their day to day responsibilities away from all the skills they've learned in selling... to managing people. You might have seen examples of companies promoting the "best seller" to be "sales manager". It might not be the right fit for their skills. Because they know how to sell, doesn't mean they know how to coach and develop others, managing their needs and leading them.

Be careful to set your goals at the right level for you. What others have achieved, by the ages they've achieved them, has no bearing on you. There will always be someone with more money than you, at a younger age. You will be that person for someone else. I've heard people explain their success by saying "I was earning ￡X by the age of Y". And? Does it have any impact on you?

Your attitude impacts your success

Blind positivity is "hope". "Hope" is the choice not to take control. It is the symptom of a lack of knowledge. Would it be more effective to say "I don't know" rather than "I hope so"? I can do something with "I don't know"... Would you like to know more? How would you go about finding out more? "I hope so"... Ok, good for you. You stay there with your head in the sand... praying and hoping. Maybe it will come good, maybe it won't. If, through no impact of your own, you are asked how you were successful, I hope you are able to admit to yourself that your presence and input had no impact, and it would have happened to anyone.

If you believe it to be true, you're halfway there. If you know that no one will answer the phone when you call, you will make that reality. You're dialling, but you're not calling with the intention to speak to someone. Find something you enjoy doing, move on. If you want to talk to someone, you will find a way. In this digital age of social media, there are many ways to strike up a conversation. If you choose to talk to someone, you will make it happen, or you won't.

If you come in in the morning knowing it's going to be a bad day, that you won't achieve anything and that you're wasting your time; you have chosen that reality and it will happen.

If you come in in the morning knowing you have challenges to overcome. You pick your frogs and eat them first thing, largest first and you attack the challenges with the behaviours you define to give yourself the best opportunity of success. You will either succeed or you will fail. When you fail, you learn, you adapt and you implement changes for next time. You choose to move forwards.

Attitude impacts behaviour. We define the optimal behaviours for our success and then we choose whether we do them. We learn from where we fail and adapt those behaviours so that we're not insane.

"No man is an island", Hugh Grant, About a Boy

From time to time, the world around us impacts our attitude. Sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. We can choose to ride the wave of the positive, but the negatives are difficult to manage aren't they? What behaviours can you define to reset your attitude when you notice it slipping? How can you invest 30 minutes of your time to get yourself back in the right headspace for success? If you don't, you might lose a whole day, because of one triggering external incident. So, 30 minutes would be a fantastic investment to save 7 hours.

Run, walk, read, play a musical instrument, listen to some music, talk to a friend... Whatever you need to do to reset.

We choose our level of success. What do you choose?