The 8 Core Excuses Standing Between You And Your Dreams
Excuses are imaginary walls standing between you and your dreams.
They can keep you from writing that book, playing guitar, starting a blog, or traveling the world.
If following your passion was easy, everybody would skip right along to their goals.
The more real your excuses seem, the more you’re onto something meaningful. It’s a sign that you’re on the right path.
Now, let’s have a look at the eight core excuses.
1. I Don’t Have Time
We all have the same amount of time to work with. Some have demanding corporate jobs. Some have hungry mouths to feed. Others have all the time in the world.
But that doesn’t mean that you should let time stop you from doing what you want. So what if you only have 60 minutes per day to work on your passion?
If you don’t start now, when will you?
It’s easy to believe that if you had more time, you’d make more things happen, but reality doesn’t work like that.
You see, there’s something called Parkinson’s Law that states: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
What this means is that even if you have more time, you’ll tend to fill that time with the same amount of work.
I saw this happen in my life when I started working online full-time. I had more time on my hands, but I didn’t get more done.
If you have a job and a family, you will obviously have less time on your hands than a 20-something.
But this shouldn’t keep you from taking action. You can always find time to do what you want. It all depends on how badly you want something.
If fear keeps you from doing something, then time is a handy excuse, isn’t it?
2. What About My Family / Friends / Kids
When you embark on your path to greatness, there will always be people that will stand in opposition.
It’s not personal. They oppose you because you’re challenging their belief system. You’re showing them, through your actions, that you can follow your heart.
Often when you’re just about to start, you’ll be completely alone, because no one believes you can do it. You have to be willing to stick out the inertia of the beginning stages.
The journey may be brutal at times, but the harder it gets, the more you grow.
As you start moving towards your passion, some of your friends will naturally fall away. They just aren’t a good fit for you anymore, and that’s okay.
The only real thing you can focus on is where your heart is taking you. The rest is up to life.
3. I Don’t Know How
Making your passion a reality seems difficult, especially when you start bumping into all the technical obstacles for getting a website up, getting traffic, creating products and so on.
The good news is that there are plenty of tutorials, guides and mentors out there that are more than happy to help you out with whatever problems you may have.
In the end, all excuses are just excuses. You can easily find the information you need. You may not know how to do everything right now, but you can learn.
I didn’t know how to make money online when I started in late 2006, but I now make enough to live wherever I want.
I gradually learned how to build an online business. I had a tornado of doubts and fears whirling around in my head, but I kept learning one thing at a time, and applying what I learned.
I didn’t wake up one day knowing what to do. No one gave me a map. I had to figure things out. I had to pave my own path.
4. I Don’t Have Money
Good news. The upfront costs for setting up most online businesses are minimal. You need a reliable web host and a domain name. That will get you started.
In some cases, you may want to hire someone to help you with the technical parts. If you’re feeling frisky, you may even want to join a course or community to slice a few months off your learning curve.
The important part is taking one step at a time, even if you have no idea what the heck you’re doing.
If you’re a writer, and you don’t have money, then write for money. There’s always a way, if you’re willing to start.
5. I Don’t Know People
I didn’t know anyone when I started, but I’ve slowly gotten to know some interesting people.
It doesn’t matter who you know. If you’re following your passion, the right people will automatically be more willing to chat with you. If they aren’t, they aren’t the right people.
We’re all human beings, and we crave authentic connections. Some successful people may be busy, but you don’t have to start smooching A-listers.
Start with the people you feel like you would want to talk to if you weren’t building a business. Be authentic and have fun. That’s how you would want people to approach you, right?
6. I’m Afraid
Fear means you’re heading in the right direction. Life without fear would be like tacos without salsa.
Fear is normal when you’re doing/learning something new. Somehow, somewhere we’ve learned that we should be fearless. We forget that fear is a part of our life.
Fear is not there to be gotten rid of, but to be acknowledged. I’m not fearless. I deal with fear every day. I doubt myself just like you. But I keep moving forward. How? I’ve trained myself to focus on taking the next step, instead of getting stuck in what if movies inside my head.
Fear will be there when you start. Fear will be there when you’re successful. The key to overcoming fear is to let it be there, while putting one foot in front of the other.
7. It Won’t Work
When I started my journey, I failed horribly. I spent $8,000 on coaching and even then I failed. Even with all these mistakes, I kept going, because I knew this was what I wanted to do.
Don’t get too caught up in results in the beginning. Focus on becoming better at what you do. Put in a lot of work. If you’re a writer, write a lot. Write blog posts, write stories, write guest posts, and read as much as you can.
The better you become, the more valuable you are to others.
But you have to be willing to be bad at first. You have to be willing to fall flat on your face. And you have to be willing to pick yourself up, again and again.
It seems like we all have to go through phases of struggle, where we grow both in experience and in wisdom.
So yes, it may not work right away, but so what? Do it anyway. Let life throw whatever it wants at you, but you keep going.
8. I’m Not Good Enough
Worrying is a habit.
Success isn’t going to change that, no external circumstance will.
The proof can be seen in famous people all around the world. They have the fame, the money and the success, but most of them are still searching.
Feeling like you aren’t good enough doesn’t make it true. Remember that.
When I write books, I have moments where everything I write feels horrible. I keep writing, because I know that my thoughts are trying to deceive me. As long as I keep going, I improve, and that’s what matters.
Conclusion
It seems that when we get close to following our dreams, we stop.
There’s always an excuse that keeps us from taking the next step.
I’m not here to tell you that you should force your way through, because sometimes taking a step back is what’s needed.
I’m here to tell you to pay attention to how you hold yourself back, how you give your power away.
You can always take the next step. It doesn’t matter where, or who, you are. You can always move toward your dreams, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to imagine them.
The question is: Are you willing to take the next step, despite the seeming boulder on your path?
Are Your Excuses Greater Than Your Dreams?
The Answer Is NO..!
