I have a small plaque on my desk that has three words in tall bold black letters: NEVER TOLERATE EXCUSES. It's an angry looking sign, and it should be - because once you allow yourself to get in the habit of tolerating excuses, it's all over.

I'm not talking about the excuses other people give us. You can't control their behavior, so don't even worry about it. I'm talking about you and me, and the excuses we give ourselves for why we aren't taking the actions we know we should be. We even have a special name for these excuses, so we'll feel better about making them: we call them "reasons."

Let me give you a few examples of common "reasons" we use when faced with challenging situations:

"I don't have the time for that ..."

"I don't have the money for that ..."

"I don't have the skills for that ..."

"I don't have enough willpower for that ..."

We use reasons like these all the time to explain why we're not making the changes in our lives that we need to. They sound valid enough - we're all pressed for time and money, and there's only so much talent to go around, right?

Wrong. These reasons have one major thing in common - they are all conspicuously missing the statement that puts the responsibility on us. Our excuses avoid dealing with the fact that we have the power to change things (and neatly absolves us of any guilty feelings for not stepping up and demanding more from ourselves).

Let's see what these "reasons" would look like if we really told the whole truth:

"I don't have the time for that because I haven't been willing to make a priority of making better use of my time."

"I don't have the money for that because I haven't been willing to make a priority of making better use of my money."

"I don't have the skills for that because I haven't been willing to make a priority of working hard to increase my skills."

"I don't have enough willpower for that because I haven't been willing to make a priority of developing real discipline."

Ouch! When you put it that way, it stings, doesn't it? It sure does when I have to talk that way to myself! The truth is that we use excuses to get ourselves out of the hard work of self-discipline or of thinking hard enough to find an answer to our problem.

If you want to get all you can out of your life, you have to decide to NEVER TOLERATE EXCUSES from yourself. You have to decide to develop the discipline. You have to decide to think hard enough to find the answer. And unless you're willing to do this, you're going to live out the rest of your days bellyaching about how tough you have it and how much the deck is stacked against you.

Only you can take control of your life. And only you can stop tolerating the excuses that you've been letting hold you back from the life you dream of.

Do This Now!

1. Get a pen and paper and write down three things you really want to do but you feel like you don't have the time/money/talent/whatever to pull it off.
2. Identify Your Excuse - What are you doing (or not doing) that is allowing this problem to exist in the first place?
3. Plan and Strike - What are you going to do to blow these excuses out of the water? Figure it out and get to it - NOW!