The New Year celebrations are a fading memory. We survived Blue Monday. Now, what lies ahead for 2018 is a series of opening and closing doors, filled with possibilities and inevitabilities that will set the course for this to be a game changing year.
An exhilarating thought? Yes, except that the journey to open new doors can be fraught with emotional landmines known as our excuses.
If you are reading this, you want change…be it radical or minuscule. For change to become a reality, we must stop and look at why we are where we are, as well as look at the unique excuses we all use to justify our point of being that keep us where we are at. Excuses are this – an apology or justification that is used to absolve us from responsibility, duty, or obligation. Excuses are our unconscious strategies that keep us safe, stagnant, and most importantly, small.
The most dangerous part of excuses is that if we’re not careful or conscious, we will actually believe our excuses are our truth.
Excuses don’t just crop up when we are skirting an unwanted or uncomfortable situation. We liberally apply them to our whole being; i.e., our behavior and personality towards other people, situations, and outcomes. Think of your own identify and how you introduce and justify yourself and your circumstances, be it personal, familial, societal, or cultural; we tend to have someone or something to blame for just about everything.
The cold truth is this…and it’s important…all of our excuses are cop-outs based on our old perspectives and uniquely memorized emotions and reactions to past experiences. And if you keep staying attached to them, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten, despite your desire for change.
If you’re ready, really ready, to evolve your life, you must restructure the construct of excuses and see them for what they really are; an invitation.
An invitation to what?
The invitation you are presented with is the ability to look at each situation that causes you emotional discomfort and distress and understand that it is an opportunity to express and experience yourself in new ways.
If you begin to view excuses as invitations, you will see that your current set of actions are what allowed you to maintain a familiar environment, wanted or unwanted, until now. As your point of power lies in the realization that your purpose is to grow and discover limitations in order to change them, the very things you’ve made excuses around are really the catalysts you been longing for. The discomfort or dissatisfaction you’ve been living with for so long is actually an invitation to know yourself in a way that strengthens your spirit and nurtures your life force.
Now comes the challenge – taking ownership of every aspect of your life and the knowing that you can positively do something about it. This is where you get to take your power back and get your needs met, first by yourself and then by others. Examining that which you have the most discomfort in and acknowledging the role you have in changing the behavior is the first step in personal transformation. This might sound too lofty or vague to actualize change, but I assure you it’s not.
Switching to the perspective of an invitation that allows you to own all facets of your experience will have a beautiful cascading effect in your life. It starts with observation and self-reflection. Quiet yourself, and honestly and sincerely ask yourself if you’re getting what you want and if you are living the life you desire. If the answers are less than desirable, what are the reasons you tell yourself and others for this? THOSE ARE YOUR EXCUSES!
Changing an excuse to an invitation begins with a willingness to change your mind, your perspective, and your story. It demands that you get into an honest, probing dialogue with yourself; unfiltered and unedited.
The point of our being is to grow and evolve, and when excuses thwart this our greatest discomforts are actualized. Acknowledgement and self-awareness are our best bet for sustained, positive change. We all have the ability to see and do things different, regardless of our starting point. Start today. Switch your excuses into invitations. Look at life through a wider and more introspective lens. By cultivating a compassionate, meaningful, and honest relationship with yourself you will open the doors to what you want, and leave the limiting excuses locked firmly behind them.
4 Comments.
Nancy, excellent notes from you!
I like to think of excuses as what’s stopping me? What’s blocking me from moving forward into my more expansive self?
And, I love the concept of an invitation-an invitation to explore, examine and move beyond those limiting beliefs, blocks, and walls and to most likely discover fear is the underlying culprit that wants to protect us and keep us safe, keep us from expanding…..Yet, when we accept the invitation to discover and explore, we learn how we can navigate through fear, end up on the other side-with valuable insights, wisdom and a new way of being in the world!
It’s a great invitation and I for one, love the reminder to keep inviting myself to expand to greater heights instead of keeping the same story running on overdrive!
Thank you!
So, thank you for this reminder
Thank you, Jackie!
Nancy, this is just chock-full of amazing guidance! I’ve starred, underlined, & saved this article..and keep slowly re-reading there’s so many amazing points to ponder! Thank you so much for sharing your profound wisdom here in your Notes From Nancy!
Thank you, Ellen!