A couple of weeks ago I had gotten into a nasty argument…

I had asked someone for marketing business advice and for feedback on my website and was shocked! He actually came up with several points of improvement, and pointed out some basic marketing shortcomings!!! How dare he, especially since all I was secretly hoping for, was his praise and compliments on how great I was already doing. Arghh

And to make things even worse, I hadn’t just asked anyone, no, I had asked my sweetheart for his honest business opinion and feedback on my work. So what to do in this situation?

Well, I did what every reasonable person would do: Fight for my honour and find excuses. TONS of excuses.

For every argument he gave me, I found at least three excuses why I couldn’t do things differently: I didn’t have the time, I did’t have the investment, I’m a Solo-preneur doing everything alone, I have a crazy lifestyle between two continents, I had a bad, last-night-sleep…and…I hate the air conditioning in our room and the cool temperatures prevent me from thinking!!! O yes, that’s how low I went.

But since it wasn’t just anyone giving me business advice, since it was the man I deeply love, I sat down and had a really good think. What had just happened? Since when did I became so unreceptive for feedback? Or even worse, have I always been like this? How could this be possible, since I consider myself an extremely open person?

Well, I did came up with some explanations for my behaviour. It truly had been a challenging year and I felt drained and exhausted, I’d always worked extremely independent and wasn’t used to feedback or critique and yes, I wanted some praise from my boyfriend for all the things that I’d accomplished that year and the challenges I’ve endured.

But guess what, even though all of these explanations made sense, in the end they were nothing but excuses for past events. So there I was, left with two options: Focus on my past and insist on my excuses, or looking forward to the future I want to create and shift my behaviour from excuses to action. And oh boy, did I take action. In a matter of days I had made important changes to my website, subscribed to free webinars to learn about Google analytics, SEO and online marketing strategies and even developed a new course offering.

Finally, I was back in my Life-Designer-Mode. All I had needed was an effective reminder, and my decision to stop finding excuses.

The Life Designing Excuse-Eradicator

So let’s have a look at our most common excuses, and what a Life Designer would do about them. This way it’ll be easier to pull the emergency breaks and hop off the Excuse-Train, in case you need it, too.

Excuse #1: I don’t have enough time

Ok, so this excuse is based on a false assumption. The assumption that there’d ever be enough time. There isn’t, sorry to be this blunt. Time is an extremely precious and finite resource. So we have to make smart and conscious choices about it. And we have to make concessions, whether we like it, or not.

Also Life Designers have to make them, but they make them conscious and aware of what they’re trading for what. There might be times where you have to dive 200% into a new business venture, so your travel ambitions or social interactions might fall behind for a certain time. But instead of complaining and whining that you can’t have it all, own your decision to make work a priority for a certain period of time, and stick to it.

” If it’s important to you, you’ll make the time. If not, you’ll make an excuse!”

This quote says it all, doesn’t it. Be clear about your priorities, own them, and pursue them. No excuses needed! And in case you realize it’s not really a priority, clear it off your agenda. Once again, no excuses needed!

Excuse #2: I don’t have enough resources

That’s a really common one, especially amongst people just starting out with a new venture, or Solo-preneurs with hardly any investment. But it’s also an excuse that is really easy to eradicate, because there’re so many great examples of people proving it wrong. People who started out with zero money, tons of obstacles, and achieved great things.

In case you haven’t seen it, check out my video on how to get more resources, when you’re just starting out. (Yes, I also needed this reminder some weeks ago 😉 )

Excuse #3: I have to do it all alone

Wrong, dear friend. You chose to do it all alone!

There’s always help and support available. All we need to do is to look for it, to ask for it…and most importantly, to accept it.

When I finally got off my excuse-train of “it’s so hard to do all my webdesign by myself, it’s too complicated” and was open for creative ideas how to address this challenge, within hours I found a Meet-up group in my city dedicated to exactly this topic, inviting people to get together for a chat and helping each other out with their websites. And I found tons of helpful, free video tutorials in my inbox…sent to me by my wonderful boyfriend.

No, we don’t have to do it all alone! All we need to do is to remain open for support, to ask and look for creative answers, and to accept it with open arms when it comes along.

So let 2020 be the year you hop off the excuse train, and pro-actively build the future you truly want to live 💛

Tired of excuses, and up for some real change in 2020?

Then check out my upcoming Group Coaching Program (Online). A powerful 8-week experience with a small group of aspiring Life Designers.