Harnessing Your Strengths
It's a Perfect Day to Break Free from Making Excuses
Perseverance always shows up as an essential quality when we consider everything we need in the quest for success. When you decide to make perseverance a permanent feature of your behaviour – a fixed habit that reinforces your determination – you’ll save yourself from the seductive temptation to give up when the going gets tough. Especially when times are difficult and the challenges are daunting.?
These are the moments when a steely determination can save you from agonising over whether or not you’re going to keep on going. Or stop. With a firm and resolute determination, you don’t allow yourself the luxury of having a choice. You don’t waste precious energy doubting your ability to succeed. You press on.
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
- George Washington Carver
It can still be tempting to give up. Everybody faces that temptation at some point or other. The problem occurs when quitting becomes the easy option and you start to invent excuses to justify why it’s a good idea for you to abandon your quest.
And it’s amazing how creative we can be when it comes to inventing excuses.
Do you have a favourite excuse that you roll out whenever you feel like giving up? Is there a familiar voice that whispers in your heart and tells you it’s OK to quit?
Sometimes, we need to be reminded how incredibly privileged we are. Sometimes, we need to be shaken out of our complacency and reminded that we really don’t have any excuses at all.
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
-??????Benjamin Franklin
Let me explain why. I’d like to share a story with you. Many years ago, I met a man in a wheelchair who’d flown in to give a talk about how to find your motivation and develop an unstoppable drive to succeed. He suffered from a rare condition from birth that left him with incredibly brittle bones. A sneeze could break a rib. A bump against a chair would break a leg. When he was still an infant, his parents were told that he wouldn’t live beyond the age of two. But he confounded the doctors and survived, though he never grew beyond a height of around three and half feet.
When he cheerfully described how he had reached the number one position as his company’s top life insurance salesman, driving a radically-adjusted SUV, learning to pilot gliders, marrying and raising a family of adopted children, most of the audience were overcome with a profound emotion that left many of them, understandably, with tears in their eyes.
I knew with absolute certainty as I listened to that man’s extraordinary story that he was quietly dismantling every excuse I would ever have. He calmly took away all my excuses for the rest of my life. As you might imagine, it was a profoundly moving experience.
You simply couldn’t witness all that this wheelchair-bound man had achieved – and ever feel sorry for yourself again.
Don't make excuses and don't talk about it. Do it!
-??????Melvyn Douglas
He was the living, breathing proof that determination and a raw drive to succeed could overcome seemingly impossible barriers. He laughed. He joked. He gently encouraged everyone in the audience to look more closely at what was holding them back. And then he invited everyone to dismiss their limitations and push on towards their goals and dreams.
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He then offered a challenge that was both simple and direct. He looked at the audience from his wheelchair and spoke with a twinkle in his eye “So, who are the ones in this room that are really disabled?” It certainly wasn’t the man on the stage.
It was in many ways a shocking and deeply sobering question. The man on the stage in the wheelchair, the man with his host of medical conditions and physical limitations, was living his life to the full, succeeding at everything he put his mind to, breaking free of his limitations and happy to share the secrets to his success.
Making excuses is easy. It’s just a very convenient shortcut to giving up. But if your dreams and goals are worthwhile and you give yourself the belief that you can truly accomplish anything you set out to achieve, then our wheelchair-bound friend is all the proof you could ever need to demonstrate what real perseverance can deliver.
So, the next time you run into the inevitable problems, difficulties and obstacles, remind yourself how incredibly fortunate you are to have the faculties, the drive and the opportunities that lie within your grasp. And keep going!
Failure is an awful thing, and when I look at the common denominator of failure,
it seems to always be the same thing: excuses.
-??????Jon Taffer
Our mission and our daily motivation at The Wellness Foundation is to help you achieve your goals, fulfil your dreams and help you realise your ambitions.
If you found this timeless advice to be helpful, make a point of absorbing the principle of perseverance into your daily routine. Let this example serve as a reminder of the importance of staying thoroughly focused and refusing to quit. Especially when the real challenges show up and try to dislodge you from your chosen pathway. Make this your new habit and watch your life and your destiny unfold with a new and powerful, unstoppable sense of purpose.
It’s a moment that could change your life forever.
In the meantime, please feel free to share this post. Encourage all of your family, your friends, colleagues and acquaintances to harness their deeper potential for a better and more successful way of experiencing and enjoying the gift of this life to the max.
It’s our intention to be a positive force for change in the world. Let’s help everyone to rise above their limitations and enjoy greater levels of freedom, happiness, inner calm and success in all areas of their lives.
Together, we really can make the world a better place to share.
Greg Parry created The Wellness Foundation and the Cognitive Empowerment Programs specifically to help people master their stress, overcome their limitations and explore the power of their true potential.
You can contact Greg and explore our websites at: