In conversations with clients – I hear some of the most amazing one liners that help my personal growth. Today’s blog is a reflection on one such sentence.
“Me: What has stood out for you in the past three weeks?
Client: I now distinguish between reasons and excuses – that helps me in getting things done!”
When I heard this sentence, it stirred something within me. I started looking at things that I haven’t been able to make desired progress on – signing up for a digital marketing course, setting up a bigger workplace, working on new workbooks and some other things which I choose not to disclose right now. I thought about it and wrote down all the “reasons” as to why the progress was not happening. I was surprised to see that some of the “reasons” were actually rooted in “excuses”. Ergo they were not really reasons but simply excuses.
All I did last week was eliminated 80% of excuses and have found solutions for ~50% of the reasons. I am already a lot closer towards completing my tasks. I feel lighter and charged up.
I will leave you with five step process – you may choose to use whenever you feel you are not making progress:
- What is stopping the progress? Make the list
- Revisit the list – write down next to each sentence E for excuse; R for reason
- Eliminate the excuses
- Write an action plan for the reasons
- Track your progress
Have a great weekend all!
PS: Here is what I use to distinguish between reason and excuse:
Reason = a cause or explanation that can be backed by data & logic and has a factual nature. A reason will have an external solution!
Excuse = an explanation that is not a reason! An excuse has an internal solution!
