We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. There are also things out of our control that cause life not to turn out the way we wished or thought it would, such as the decisions of other people or Mother Nature. Ninety-nine percent of the time, however, when something goes wrong and not according to plan, it’s because we made an excuse about the plan, and we made another excuse to divert from it.

One Example

Let’s say you’re dieting, and one of the main rules is no sugar. Then you attend a friend’s birthday party, see the triple-layer chocolate cake with the creamy frosting, and decide that you’re going to have a piece. Immediately. You feel guilty, but you tell yourself it’s a special occasion, so what you did wasn’t so bad. Not only did you justify eating the cake, but you also defended the excuse for eating the cake. You’re supposed to be dieting, so anything that results in the cake going into your mouth is an excuse.

Consider these words by Benjamin Franklin: “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

My Experience

I’d love to pretend I’ve never made excuses, but when I first entered college, I made many. I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do for a career exactly, and I didn’t seek out the best advice from advisors. I took advice from fellow students who were also figuring things out for themselves.

An associate degree should take 2–3 years to achieve, but for me, it took more than four years. I kept changing my mind on what I wanted to do. One thing sounded more fun over another, or one area made more money than another. I jumped all over the place, trying to convince myself I was doing the right thing when all I really did was spend a lot of extra money and waste more than a year with my excuses.

But, I took responsibility. I’m now a guy with two advanced degrees, a bachelor's degree, and that associate degree. Ironically, the associate degree took the longest because I didn’t have the mindset that I needed to be successful in education.

 As Roy Bennet said,“Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.”

Once you can look at yourself in the mirror, be honest about the excuses you’re making, and develop tools and a strategy for success, there will be no stopping you.

Define Your Prize

There are 1001 (and probably more) techniques and ways to shed excuses and take responsibility. Some are fantastic, and others work only in certain situations for certain people. When I’m working with clients, there are usually several specific ideas we explore. The one that I find works for everybody is simple: define the prize.

There’s an old saying, “Keep Your Eye on the Prize,” but you can only do that if you define what the prize is, and the best way to define the prize is to attach emotion.

Let’s look at the first example again. It’s easy to have that piece of cake if your only motivation for being on a diet is to “lose weight.” However, you don’t decide you want to lose weight just for the sake of doing it. You lose weight because your clothes are too tight or you’re unhealthy or you don’t like the way you look.

If you can say to yourself, “It’s going to cost me another weekend of looking good at the beach in my new bathing suit if I have this piece of cake,” it’s much easier to turn down that chocolatey goodness. Why? Because the goodness that comes from feeling confident in your bathing suit outweighs any piece of cake.

When it comes to your career, the same rule applies. Once you find a career that you’re really passionate about, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to earn the degree required to obtain that career. When you find your true passion, time no longer matters. The degree becomes a means to the career you want — your prize — and that’s all you care about.

Once you define the prize, you can achieve everything.

If you’re having difficulty defining your prize, feel free to reach out to me. I’ve helped several people who were having that exact issue, and they’re now thriving in their ideal career.