Don’t make excuses for why you can’t get it done. Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.

Don’t make excuses for why you can’t get it done. Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen. – Ralph Marston

The artist said that life got in the way, and that’s why the painting is unfinished. Excuse or reason? We can’t tell how busy his life is, or what priority his paintings are to him.

What does that mean?
This is a line from a much longer text, about 6 tweets long. The full text will be attached at the bottom of the post, and this is the 4th paragraph in the quote.

This quote starts by asking us to not make excuses for our difficulties or failures. The tough things take time and effort. If you keep trying, you stand a better chance than if you quit. That is all that excuses are, the foundation for quitting.

So if we aren’t going to quit, we need to focus on something other than what isn’t working or why we can’t do it. The quote urges us to focus on why this is a ‘must’ in our lives. This will help us build our resolve as well as our motivation.

With our resolve steeled and our motivation re-motivated, we should be ready to get back into it, and learn from the last round of effort. With those lessons in mind, it’s time to apply motivation, focus, and lessons to the next attempt. Because it must happen!

Why is avoiding excuses important?  
We all do it from time to time. We make excuses. Almost always we are simply laying the foundations for quitting. That doesn’t mean we cannot ever stop doing something. Sometimes our needs or interests change, or we realize the task is far more involved than we imagined. It happens.

But there is a difference between coming up with reasons why our interests are no longer served by continuing to pursue a specific goal, and simply whining about it being too tough for us. By avoiding placing our focus on why we can’t do things, we avoid the bulk of the usual excuses.

Avoiding excuses is necessary if we are to ever accomplish anything. Excuses steal our motivation and weaken our resolve. That is no way to get anything done, right? If we can remained focused on our reasons why we must get it done, we crowd out the excuses, and make things happen. At least that’s how it works for me. How about you?

Where can I apply this in my life?
Think of all the times you’ve come close to quitting a project because of the issues that kept coming up. Think of all the times you became discouraged and did quit. Think of all the opportunities you never started to work on, or even consider, all because you were focused on why you couldn’t instead of why you had to do it.

Is that a clear enough list of why this quote is both important and relevant to your life? The answer to the question is every one of those projects or ideas could have used a little of this quote to help out, right? At least that’s the way I see it.

Take a moment and consider how your life might be different if you had been able to accomplish each of those tasks. Not all or nothing, but each one in turn. Some might not have made that big a deal, others might still have been works in progress, but something would be different.

When I was a teen, I had real problems with my focus. Both the basic ability, and where I directed it. I frequently focused on the difficulties rather than on the possibilities. I rarely made anything a must, but just something I wanted to try. Not even something to do, just to try.

Part of the damage of that lack of ‘must’ and poor focus was that I eventually convinced myself that I never finish anything! How empowering is that? Also notice the ‘absolute,’ the use of the word ‘never.’ The joke is to never use absolutes. The reason is because it is rarely true. I did finish things, just not many.

Instead of having a seed to grow from, I had a barren desert. That’s a great place to try to grow from, isn’t it? Obviously I’ve worked on my focus, and tried to limit my excuses. If anything, I’ve gone a bit overboard in the other direction. I now have projects I refuse to abandon, because I will finish them, eventually.

Which of your projects or ideas are you willing to revive? Which were abandoned due to your focus or your excuses, but are still worthy of your attention and effort? What can you focus on to help drive it forward? What are the reasons why you must make it happen?

If you can answer those questions, and make the time, you should be able to get going again. Then it’s just a matter of learning from each experience and taking the next shot at your goal. Even if it has to be broken down into smaller steps, the pattern is the same.

In the end, you will either have what you want, or you will have your excuses for why you don’t. It all depends on whether you focus on your difficulties or on your reasons why it must happen. The choice is yours. The results are yours as well. Choose wisely.

From: Twitter, @DavidRoads
confirmed at : http://greatday.com/motivate/120111.html (his website)
Photo by Donald Lee Pardue

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• 6 Reasons Why We Make Excuses and Reject the Truth (corynikkel.com)

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Make it happen

The obstacle itself is not enough to stop you. What stops you is your assumption that you can’t get past that obstacle.

The problem is not that you have too much of this or too little of that. The problem is, you’re waiting for perfect conditions that will never come.

The achievement that really happens, happens in the real world. The things that get done, get done in less than ideal conditions.

Don’t make excuses for why you can’t get it done. Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.

There will always be challenges. And there will always be something you can do to get beyond each one.

Listen closely, and hear that your dreams are calling you. Feel their pull, feel their positive power, and do what it takes to make them real.