Excuses, self-sabotage, whatever you want to call it. It’s close to my heart because I had always been a victim of excuses and you know, it still stretches me. 

Admittedly, even if I am a mindset coach, there are still times when I will fall victim to my excuses to do my self-sabotage habits and do the things that don’t light me up, after all, we are all human! Instead of giving you ways on how to stop making excuses, I thought it might be a great idea to give you three reasons why we make excuses. 

I believe that awareness is key in breaking any sort of patterns or habits that aren’t serving you at all. I started thinking about why we make excuses, and there’s a whole host of reasons. I’d love for you to share with me why you make excuses, and I’d compile them all into some sort of a download so that we can have an awareness sheet. 

The Reasons:

The number one reason why we tend to make excuses is having no direction, or not being in alignment with our purpose.

For example, not being in alignment with your vision or your goals makes you become wishy-washy. Because you aren’t crystal clear in where you want to go, or what you really want, then you will find every excuse not to go or not to do the thing that you know you need to do. You just don’t want to do it right now, and you’ll keep it at the back of your head.

People that make excuses can sometimes come across as if they are lazy, uninspired, or not motivated. But this slump is really fixable. Sometimes all it takes is a session with a coach where you can sit down together, get back on track, and figure out where you’re going in life. That way you have a clear direction and a path to follow. Having long-term goals may seem overwhelming, so you can create specific short-term goals, let’s say, every week or every month, which can give you instant gratification when you accomplish them. This is better than having huge goals for the year that may seem vague.

With all of my coaching clients, I leave them with some action steps or tasks to do, so that they have this sense of feeling that they’re always moving forward, and that they’re always making progress. When you don’t have that feeling of having progress, this is when you tend to start to make excuses. It’s like you’re walking forward with your eyes closed.

So when it comes to your goals, make sure they excite you, and make sure there is a little bit of that nervous feeling in your gut, make sure that your goals get you out of bed.

Your goals should be that amazing for you, making it the reason that you want to get out of bed and start each day. If you just don’t have them right now, then please invest in yourself and do the work to get yourself living a life of purpose because you are worth it! It’ll make all the difference for you.

Another reason why we tend to make excuses is we’re trapped within the Negativity Cloud.

A negative mindset, a fixed mindset, fear, or anything around that realm. Let’s call it the Negativity Cloud. The Negativity Cloud can make us feel a fear of failing. It could make us feel unworthy or undeserving. This negative mindset is really unmotivating, so it’s so easy for us to fall and make those excuses. It is normal to get into a negative mindset sometimes, but it is easy to also get out of it really quickly.

“This is too hard. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it, I’m not motivated, I’m not driven.” 

If you feel like that, it is okay. What I would say is that you just need more support, accountability, and someone to work with.

I have invested in my own personal coach for the last six years of my life. I’m always working with someone because, yes, I have felt alone a lot in life. I’m just one of those solitary people. It’s just an empath thing, so instead of just sitting here wallowing in sorrows, I just decided to sell things that I didn’t need anymore like my DJ equipment and invested in coaches! I invested in my personal growth and in my personal development and it has given me the sense of freedom that I was seeking.

That is ultimately the reason why I’m here and living this life of purpose. It’s because I took the time to work in and to go deep into personal growth. I figured out that I mustn’t be the only one feeling like this, so maybe I can help another person doing this sort of work. Try to really become mindful of your mindset and how it’s operating so you don’t fall victim to excuses.

If you have heard in one of my Voice Note podcast episodes, I recently had an autoimmune condition. I never thought that I would have this, but it came to a point when my body screamed at me that something was wrong. And you know, the minute that I was diagnosed, I straight away went into action! This isn’t the first time I’ve had any conditions or illness, or something bad struck me down. The more this happens, the more ‘pro’ I become at healing myself! The body can heal anything, you just have to have the right mindset and adjust your life accordingly. Instead of falling into the excuses, I was like “No, I’m gonna give my illness a timeline!” I wrote it down and I sent it out to the world. I sent it to a few friends and I said “In eight weeks I will be completely healed from this!” and you won’t believe it. In eight weeks I was HEALED. The mind really is a powerful thing.

Once you believe in your goal, you CAN achieve it, as long as you put the effort in to do all the crucial things that will help.

The third reason why we make excuses is uncertainty.

It’s that confusion, that feeling of lust, that feeling of stagnation in life. It’s like we lose our drive, and when we lose it, where do we go? We fall into a negative mindset, which is point number two.

We want you to always feel certain and amazing, and that goes back to point number one – making sure that your goals are in alignment with your purpose. When that area is taken care of, you don’t fall into this lost sort of stagnant state where life is a little bit uncertain, because this is where you can start to pick up bad habits, like excuses!

So those three are the things that I wanted you to become aware of so you can stop making dreaded excuses yourself. There’s plenty of ways to stop these, and you know you just gotta get up and go! You’ve got to help yourself make it easy so that you do these wonderful things.

For example, if you have a gym workout in the morning, keep your clothes next to your bed, keep your gym bag next to you, and have a bottle of water in the fridge ready to go.

There’s lots of ways to manage excuses, but today I wanted you to become super clear of why we do this so that way every single day this week you can say “Hmm which one is it? Point 1, 2, or 3?” Sometimes, it can even be a mixture of all of them.

I’ve come to an age and a point in my life (I don’t even know if it’s an age thing to be honest) where excuses don’t win anymore because I’m so conscious of the benefit and aware of how much better I will feel once I get the thing done, or if I do the thing that I usually would try to find an excuse to get out of. Like exercise, eating well, and all of that sort of stuff.

Dealing with my recent autoimmune healing journey has been a huge eye opener. I suppose health scares can really kick you up the backside and motivate you to do the things, but it’s important for us to not wait for something to go wrong to do the right thing. It’s like we take this gamble with our life thinking that our actions won’t have consequences, and when they have consequences, that’s the only time we’ll take action. This is such backwards thinking. I know that mine was a result of the conditions that I grew up in because there was no emphasis on exercising, there was no education on how to heal yourself of any illness, disease or heal your mindset. I’m so glad that I have made it a priority to invest in my wellbeing and walk this path that I am on now.

I agree that we’re all just doing the best we can with what we know. If you’re one of those people who keeps on falling victim to your excuses, you end up procrastinating, and you don’t get your goals done, please just keep trying, because there will come a day where your habit of persistence will become permanent. Believe me.

Just keep trying and don’t quit! It doesn’t matter if you fail, you just need to learn how to improve and try again. That will surely pay off, trust yourself and you’ve really got to want the change and that’s pretty much it. Remember, life is not a race, and you are not left behind. It’s the small steps you consistently take that will ultimately lead you to succes!