Happy Monday!

James Henderson
May 13, 2018
3 min read

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Wow, we are almost half way through this month. Next month we will be half way through this year. Are you where you want to be? Are you content with your life or working for more? I am not judging you based on how you answer that question. We all have 1 life to live. I am not satisfied with certain aspects of my life and I am working daily on improving. I have my own struggles too. Believe me, I am a work in progress. So, today let's focus on those of you that are not content. For those of you that are content, please continue to read on and share this with someone that you know that is not content and wants/needs to improve themselves.

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Excuses, What Are They Good For? Well, what is an excuse? Webster's Dictionary defines excuse as: to make apology for. to try to remove blame from. to forgive entirely or disregard as of trivial import. regard as excusable. to allow to leave. I found that excuse can be used in different forms thanks to Webster's. For those of you that are not satisfied, well will focus on "to try to remove blame from" because this is something that when corrected will help us all. For example, let's say I am working to lose weight and I have set a specific goal to control my caloric intake yet today I excuse myself from the situation when I overeat by saying that I was with friends and everyone was enjoying the great food at the event. Here are a few more examples: How about me saying that I am going to work on a certain habit such as cleaning up after myself or being on time to work, to events, and to the gym. How about if I have a family and I have to make sure they are all ready go at a specific time for an event? Now, each time I come up with a reason why I was unable to succeed at the given task such as I forgot, I over slept, they over slept, and there was a lot of traffic. From what I gathered from Webster's in these situations I am removing myself from the situation. I am not taking responsibility for doing my best to be successful. I am finding a way to shift blame to someone or something other than me. So, back to my question, in this situation the excuse is good for me being late, good for me not being held accountable, and for me not making progress as I want to move forward in my life and change my habits.

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Ways To Change These are not in any particular order. Acknowledge that you have a habit that needs to change Write an action plan Believe that you can do the things on your action plan If you fail, acknowledge that you failed and start over Do not give up or into your temptations, and if you do, acknowledge it and start over Have an accountability partner Accept positive criticism and do not get defensive Take small steps forward and rebound if you fail Find out what your triggers are Identify underlying issues that you have that are causing you to behave in this manner Apologize to yourself and those that you have treated wrongly Seek help from a professional Love and believe in yourself enough to treat yourself better