I was reading a Business Review the other day and discovered that, apparently, not achieving your goals is normal. Okay. If that’s the test for normal, here’s what else is normal: everyone gets sick, everyone gets fat, and everyone is in debt. The only thing I can conclude about Business Review’s survey is that all of the people they questioned were the kind of people who make choices not to realize their goals.
I’m sure you’ve known someone like that – maybe you’ve made a choice like that once or twice. These are the same people who make a New Year’s resolution and then immediately declare “I don’t know why I make resolutions, they never work out or come true.” These people have their reasons (excuses) for why resolutions don’t work out.
Here are the Top Ten Excuses for Not Achieving Goals:
- It is not my fault; I really tried; someone else tripped me up.
- I’m not the problem, they are. (See #10, above.)
- Ran out of time; there are only so many hours in a day.
- I am only human; I’m too old.
- Sometimes, it’s just too hard; who wants to fail anyway?
- I never hit my goals; you can’t change history.
- It is human nature; no one hits all of their goals all of the time.
- Lunch foiled my health plan; everybody else was doing it. (See #10, above.)
- I was just hoping I would get close; some is better than none, right?
- Life got in the way of hitting my targets.
None of these reasons/excuses are true or some (all?) of these reasons/excuses are true. Which is it for you?
None of these reasons/excuses are true, but all of them are dangerous. By giving just one of these reasons/excuses even a nanosecond of space and time in your thought process, you are telling your subconscious mind it’s okay to give up. Game over. Say sayonara to your goals and adios to your dreams of a better you.
You’re willing to give up your power to the calendar or a clock? Really? You’re going to let some imaginary age barrier stop you? You’d actually quit your path and deny your God-given talents and dreams because of a perceived moment of phoney embarrassment or because of some act that happened in the past and is over now? Really? Do you understand how stupid that is?
And, while we’re at it, who the heck are these “they” I keep hearing about? There is no one between you and your choices, unless you put them there. There is no one else stopping you. There is no “they” or “yah, but” or “almost” when it comes to you and your choices.
There are only two places you can be in life. You are either getting the results you want or you are using reasons and excuses for not being the best version of yourself. Hitting your targets is a choice. What is your choice? After reading the Business Review article I realized that I hang out with some pretty amazing people. I choose success and my friends choose success. I know people who hit their targets each and every day; and they think it is normal. High performance people believe they will hit their targets constantly. And on the rare occasion when they aim but miss the target, they ask themselves “What do I need to do differently when my outcome doesn’t work out the way I planned?” And then they go out and hit their target.
What are you telling yourself you want? What is your choice, what’ll it be?
