Three Perfectly Good Excuses to Ditch This Summer

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Excuses are sneaky things. Sure, some of them are loud and whiny.?

But there are plenty of other excuses that you might mistake for good reasons, simply because they appear that way. These sneaky excuses report for duty in fitted suits and nice shoes, freshly shaved and coiffed. Their job?

To provide perfectly sound and logical responses to the question you keep thinking about: “Why haven’t I….written my blog or pitched that producer or started a live-streaming show?”

Your excuses, disguised as “reasons,” have responses ready: The time isn’t right. You’re not ready. You should wait until you have more money or more information or more time.

These reasons, which you probably pay a lot of time and attention to, are actually keeping you from your real goals: To stand out, step up, to speak out and get yourself heard.

I happen to know a few of these excuses personally — I’ve caught them wasting my time, too.?

It’s time to fire them from your mental workforce so you can recruit more effort for the things you want to achieve.?

Excuse #1: “I’m not an expert.”

Well, you — yes, you — are an expert. You’re not an expert on everything, and you’re probably not the only expert in the world on your industry. But you absolutely are an expert in what you do. You likely assume other people know all about what you do. You would be wrong.

You underestimate what you know and how valuable it can be to others. If you spend your life keeping the books or planning parties or training dogs, you have an opinion about how to do it well.

That means that you’re in a position to not just run your business, but to speak, write or contribute in the media as an expert on that topic. It’s true! You’re pretty driven by what you do and whom you help. Wouldn’t it be amazing to reach more people that way? Of course it would.

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Excuse #2: I’m just a small business. No one’s looking for me.

You could run a brand-less business where you just take money, provide a service, and keep it purely transactional.

But the reason you’re even reading this is because you want your brand, your work, to mean something. For your brand to mean something, you need to stand for something, have a reason why you do it, and communicate it to the people who need it most.

Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you should think small. But bigger does not mean “broader”— bigger means seeing the many other ways in which what you do matters to someone else. Find it and lean into it.?

Excuse #3: I need to do more research on the right software/platform/etc.

You might think a fear of technology and learning new tools would stop you cold. And it can. I once coached an incredibly bright woman who wanted to start a live-streaming show but was completely hung up over the tech. I walked her through the technology and she couldn’t believe how easy it was.

But a love of tech can slow you up, too, because then you spend all this time researching instead of doing. I’ve known clients who spend hours researching the right email platform rather than actually writing and sending out newsletters.?

Whether you love or loathe technology, don’t let it stand between you and the people you want to reach!

In fact, one of my favorite productivity gurus, Seth Godin, says that perfectionism is a way of hiding.

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Rather than wasting time shopping for the right platform or tool, he says, you should shop for commitment, because that’s what you need right now.?

It’s time for you to be committed less to your excuses and more committed to the career you want to build. The world is waiting for you!

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BONUS FREEBIE: Your message deserves the media’s attention. So how do you get out there in a bigger way? I’ve got you covered.?CLICK HERE to grab my free “Checklist to Become a Go-To Media Expert.”

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