I had to learn the hard way

Excuses

It's All About Responsibility

      Do you want to do better financially? If so, why? For many people, making each year more financially stable than the previous year, ensures a fulfilling, quality life for them and their families. Here are 4 large areas that that will influence your quality of life: family, personal values and beliefs, health, and money. There are hundreds of other things that will be part of your life and have some degree of influence, but if you don’t get the most out of these four areas you will not enjoy the life as much as you should have. The four areas are critical to the quality of your life. Personal responsibility is the key ingredient to success in each of those areas.

    Why is personal responsibility the key? It is a "good news / bad news" situation. The "bad news" is that no one is going to care about your financial situation as much as you do thus no one will ever give you the same amount of energy or heart as you can to improving your situation. The good news is that financial freedom (debt free living) is possible by anyone. It doesn’t take an inheritance, a college education, or a money windfall to do it. It only takes one thing: personal responsibility.

Excuses

     Excuses, the opposite of personal responsibility, rob your ability to do better. What does an excuse really do? An excuse is an act that steals esteem and quality of life directly from you. An excuse is different from positive action taken to solve or prevent problems.  You can make excuses to anyone but the worst are when you make them to yourself. Excuses to yourself are lies. You are lying to yourself. Do people respect liars? Do you respect liars? Can you respect yourself if you tell yourself lies?

     You, like the other people that hear the excuses, are not dumb. You recognize an excuse (lie) as soon as you see or hear it. What it does is make everything else you say questionable. If you don’t hold up your agreements with others they will eventually stop making agreements with you. Once you have lost their commitment you have just burned another bridge. If you make excuses and don’t complete your work, goals, or studies you just told yourself not to believe you on other things. Next time you tell yourself "I can do this" or "This time is going to be different" or "I can make this budget work" you are not going to believe yourself. If you can’t get past that you are doomed before you have even started. Take personal responsibility for your credibility with others and most importantly with yourself and do not make excuses.

    Real Life Story:   Instead of making excuses, face the facts. Excuses are like turning your back on a problem and hoping it will go away.  The gutters at my house became almost completely clogged with leaves. The fact was that they hadn’t been cleaned out in years. I had all kinds of excuses:  the gutters were too high up, it was dangerous, or we didn’t expect that much rain this year. Now it was going to be difficult to clean out the gutters. The potential damage to the house, from backed up rain water, could be substantial. If it's done on a yearly basis, cleaning leaves out of the gutter would be no big deal. However, now it was going to be a very big job and I didn’t want to do it. So year after year I made excuses. In the back of my mind I knew what could happen, but I didn’t want to deal with this giant job. Sure enough, the backed up gutters soon created even bigger problems than I expected. The backed up water made the garage ceiling leak which caused mold to grow. Because there was so much moisture now building up around the house, due to backed up rain water, mold grew rapidly all around my house. To make a long story short I had to invest a lot of time and money into cleaning out the gutters which were caked shut with leaves and debris, snake out nearly impassable drain pipes, clean mold off the entire house, and buy air cleaners to purify the moldy air in the house.

     The absolute worst part was what happened to my 1 year old daughter. She had to be admitted to the hospital for breathing problems. The doctors were theorizing what could be wrong with her and someone mentioned mold spores. That statement was like a hard slap in the face. I immediately knew what had happened. I had allowed so much mold to grow on the house because of the moisture created by backed up gutters that the air in the house was filled with mold spores. I cant describe how awful I felt when I realized what I had allowed to happen because of my laziness and pathetic yearly excuses. Those gutters were my responsibility. I made excuses and didn’t fulfill my responsibility in cleaning them out and now my daughter was paying the biggest price. It was a hard way to learn the severity at which consequences can happen when you neglect your personal responsibility. You shouldn’t accept or make excuses.

You can do it!

     Achieving debt free living is not unreachable goal. Anyone can do it. So what will make the difference between achieving or failing at your financial goals? The difference is personal responsibility. You have to accept the responsibility and do the right things consistently in order to achieve your goals. You can do it. You are free to make good decisions every day and there are many tools available to help you. There is no reason you can’t do it except for you holding yourself back with poor choices. You are in charge of you. Don’t be afraid to confront challenges face to face and deal with them. You will become stronger each time you do it. Don’t hesitate to look outside your comfort zone for solutions. You may have to look at things differently or try new things. You will be the deciding factor if this program works. You can make it happen!

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