Can you discern the difference between an excuse and an obstacle?
Deciphering between the two will make it much easier to reach your goals. Here’s a helpful way to identify an excuse versus an obstacle:
Excuses are rooted in inaction.
They are fabricated or perceived problems that are voiced to stop you from taking action toward your goals.
Obstacles, on the other hand, are emerging challenges that appear as you take action toward your goals.
When you live in a world of excuses, it’s easy to employ what psychology calls confirmation bias, or favoring information that confirms your existing belief. Your mind will look for real-life examples and reasons as to why your excuses are valid, and you can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough.
Overcoming an excuse is a choice. Overcoming an obstacle is the natural course of life.
With an excuse, you have two choices: You can forget your goal, deciding you don’t really want to do it after all. Or, you can transform your excuse into an obstacle and employ your full creative resources to tackle the situation and find ways to get around, over, or through it.
When you want your goal badly enough, you will transmute your excuses into obstacles.
Yes, obstacles make us feel uncomfortable and delay success, but they always precede success. On the other hand, excuses make us feel better about not taking action on our goals and always precede failure.
Excuses will keep you stuck and stagnate. Obstacles are what make life interesting, and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
Next time you’re faced with a big decision, check in with yourself and your goals. Are you stuck because you need to brainstorm creative ideas to get around an obstacle, or are you stuck because you use excuses to validate your inaction?
Unless the goal no longer serves you, the obstacle provides a better path to your success.
