Brett McFall at the World Internet Summit in June 2012 provided attendees with a list of 10 excuses people use to prevent succeeding with an internet business.
I have adapted these below to fit ALL business owners.
English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The excuses you need to stop using if you want to be successful.
- “I lack knowledge”. Maybe, but you can always go out and learn what you need to know. The information in the blogs here and on the membership site are designed to help you with the knowledge.
- “I have no expertise so how can I possibly succeed?” Interesting how often the experts fail or only achieve moderate success. Remember the tortoise and hare and how the tortoise just kept going and he beat the hare who thought he had everything he needed to win so never watched the finish line.
- “I tried it once and failed”. Any idea how many times Branson failed? Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Abraham Lincoln?
- “It looks too hard, I have no idea how to start“. Our fear prevents us from finding out how hard or easy something is so we avoid what we think we might fail at. For every successful person they started regardless of how difficult the task looked,
- “My family/friends will laugh at me if I try“. Right and what are they doing now. Are they keeping you down because if you succeed then they are afraid you will no longer need them or want them in your life? Your family is often afraid that if you succeed, they will become unimportant or you will have no time or desire to have them in your life any more, And if that is true, you need to help them know how important they are to you
- “No time right now“. We all have 24 hours in a day and some of us make different choices so that we can succeed. One rule I learned many years ago from Rita Davenport was the 4 D’s – Drop it, Delay it, Delegate it or Do it NOW.
- “Right now is the wrong time for me“. You can think that the time is wrong either for you idea or for you but the if you have the idea then the time is probably right and if the idea or offering keeps coming up, then maybe the time is right you just need to take the steps to move forward,
- “I lack the skills”. Interesting thing, skills can be developed. Like time, you only need to decide to do it and you will learn and develop the skills to do whatever you need to do to move forward
- “Why should I listen to your advise?” One thing about business is that there is ALWAYS something new to learn and you can never know everything or have the right answer. And remember, advise is just that, you can decide to use it or to reject it but you get to chose.
- “Yeah right, that may work for you but things never work out for me“. How you think and what you believe about yourself will determine if you succeed or fail. And if one person you admire can do it, the only thing stopping you from doing it is your desire. And competition grows the market more often. Just look at the android apps and cell phone markets. They keep growing and changing with something new every day.
Have fun with these and let me know in the comments what you thought. And if you think these are valuable, then please share this with your friends.
Roberta
Passionately supporting your success
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Wow Roberta,
I hear these so often and it seems as those who want to make a change in their lives are the ones who share these excuses.
Love this list. Thanks for sharing,
Cindy
Cindy Murphy recently posted..How To Use The New Facebook Scheduling Tool l Are You Using It?
Anyone who does coaching and mentoring hears these all the time. My son and I were discussing the reasons why some things have still to happen in our business and it was interesting how he kept seeing the excuses compared to how did
I have probably used all of these excuses at one time or another. I love the story of the tortoise and the hare. I believe determination and perseverance is very important. You really have to WANT to succeed and you have to be willing to accept the responsibilities that go along with success.
I am reminded of a saying that I once heard…”You can have anything you want but you can’t have everything you want.” That is the key. You have to set your priorities and then stay focused and never give up.
Janette Fuller recently posted..Book Review: Attract And Feed A Hungry Crowd
I think we all have used the excuses at one time or another. Focus and small steps are important to success
When we take excuses one at a time and ask how it keeps us safe and what the cost is sometimes a great first step to get out of our own way…great post!
Tambre Leighn recently posted..The “S” Word
Tambre, I like that but most people never inspect what they say or think so could be a real challenge for them
Well like my trainer says – your body is secondary when it comes to poor performance, your mental blocks are primary. She says we think we cannot do it and thus fail to perform a little extra on the machines. We think too much and thus we fail to perform; we do need to get over the mental blocks and just keep trying!
Hajra recently posted..It wasn’t all that great…
So agree Hajra, over and over our mind pushes our body or our mind stops our body
You hit on some really common themes with the excuses you list here. Interesting how so many of them boil down to fear isn’t it? Sometimes I find with my clients its just getting going with any little step that allows them to get past the reseans..err..excuses!
We have to be afraid..and just do it anyway.
Bonnie recently posted..3 Easy Steps to Not Doing Something Stupid
Thanks Bonnie. When I listened to Brett talk about why people were afraid to succeed on the internet, I saw the bigger picture of why they were afraid to succeed in life. And one other thing – the success journey is different for every single person