The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.
It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
(Albert Einstein)
Personal change, be it developing new skills, leaving destructive relationships, losing weight or dealing with other negative patterns, involves psychological mechanisms that may hinder the process. One of the biggest obstacles are our excuses.
You cannot imagine the level of people’s creativity when it comes to making excuses. Over the years of coaching practice, I’ve collected lots of them, from the ridiculous to the illogical ones. For example, people say “I know that I need to change, my life is broken but I just don’t have the motivation” or “Once I tried to change things, and it didn’t work” or “only weak people need to change, I am strong enough to accept my fate” and so on. Isn’t it funny to see the games that we play with ourselves? What’s not funny, is that all these people actually believe that their excuses are reasonable.
How often do you justify your failures or inaction by utilizing these types of thoughts? In reality, it’s these attitudes that prevent us from achieving greater things in life. Excuses work
as a defensive psychological mechanism which helps to diminish anxiety and “keep face”. However, they are more dangerous than you can imagine. Although excuses are an illusion of reality, our mind perceives them as real.