There’s nothing that Detroit-based entrepreneur, Ken Lear, loves more than seeing his team members become successful. As his fellow mentors will likely relate to, there’s also nothing more frustrating than seeing with someone with amazing potential make excuses. Here, Ken Lear shares three phrases you should never say again!
Here’s a harsh reality to ponder today: You will never reach your full potential if you don’t learn to stop making excuses.
Ouch. But true.
As long as you continue to accept your own excuses, you’ll continue to settle for mediocrity and never reach excellence. To help you get started, we’ve rounded up 3 of the most common excuses that may be holding you back—cut them out of your vocabulary today!
1) “I’m too busy.”
Saying that you’re too busy for something sends a clear message that you simply don’t care enough to make time for it. Another form of this excuse is “it’s just not a good time.” The truth is that there will be very few times in your adult life when something comes at a “good” time. You will always be juggling responsibilities and feeling short on time, but if something is important enough to you, you’ll schedule the time to take care of it. If you find that you’re too busy to devote sufficient focus to important tasks, try taking on a lighter workload to ensure that you can give your full attention to each and every project that you’re responsible for.
2) “I don’t know how.”
This phrase just isn’t a valid excuse. When you’re confronted with a task that you don’t know how to complete, seize the opportunity to learn how to fulfill it. If you continue to accept that you aren’t good at something, you’ll never allow yourself to take initiative and become better at it. Similar to the previous excuse, allowing a lack of knowledge to prevent you from accomplishing something simply shows that it’s not a priority.
3) “It’s impossible.”
Nelson Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” You’ve likely heard an overused derivative of this quote before too: “nothing is impossible”. If something seems impossible, it’s likely just because you’re overwhelmed or you don’t know where to start. By using this excuse, you create a habit of accepting defeat and giving up. And like any bad habit, the more you give in to it, the harder it is to break.
If you liked this post, you can find similar content over on Ken Lear’s blog!
