- Good morning, good life.
Welcome back to Amy TV, where we come together
to help you go after the life that you want.
Can we all agree that you're here for the right reasons?
(lively music)
Okay look.
Maybe you have a good excuse.
It's a real reason for something happening
and you feel people need to know about it.
But that's just the thing.
It's your excuse and you feel like it needs to be known.
What does that have to do with anybody else?
The problem with excuses in general
is that it's all about ourselves,
and not about the acknowledgement of other people.
Often, the people that we are serving our excuses to.
I'm sorry I'm late, there was so much traffic.
I didn't get that done
because I didn't have enough time to finish.
I shouldn't have said that,
I've been super irritable this week.
Most of the time, I feel like we deliver an excuse
because we think the other person is taking it personally.
And so, we make it personal with our excuses.
But it's actually a lot more mature and self-aware
to skip the excuse all together.
And not even talking about the fact
that you might have an excuse, to just move on
to something more productive for everybody.
Here's another reason to do it.
Turns out, if you give too many excuses,
they stop working really fast.
A study by researchers at Iowa State University
said that if professionals too often attempt
to talk their way out of taking responsibility,
colleagues may lose faith in them.
And that when an employee tries to hedge against judgment
for a performance by pointing to handicapping factors,
like slim resources or tight deadlines,
the justifications lose credibility
after just the second time.
So they're not working, so let's just stop all together.
And if you wanna learn more about how to stop,
then stay tuned.
Before we can get into it, you know what time it is.
I have to give some Twitter Gratitude.
And today, I would like to shine a light on @StephBartolome.
I appreciate you so much for your time
and attention of these videos, it means a lot.
I know, I'm a talker, but you hang with me
and I appreciate that.
But I also really appreciate you spreading the word
and giving me that retweet.
If you would like to potentially be featured here
on Twitter Gratitude,
all you have to do is follow me on Twitter
and retweet my latest video when it comes.
And I'm very sorry Steph, if I butchered your last name.
All right, let's stop making excuses.
And so, these are a few things
that I want you to think about
next time you're feeling that word vomit come up.
Start with trying to find something else to say
that doesn't include the words I or me.
Let's say you're late,
and you're running into the restaurant or whatever,
to meet somebody.
And you sit down, and you wanna say to them,
I'm sorry I'm late.
Instead of that.
Instead of saying I'm sorry I'm late,
all these things happened, and then,
parking and the valet guy took forever, whatever.
Instead say, have you been waiting long?
Or your time is worth more than this.
Observe the fact that you're acknowledging somebody else
by not talking about yourself.
And allow that to set the tone
for the fact that you're learning your lesson,
and you actually mean it.
It does come off like you intend to correct it in the future
when you actually don't talk about yourself.
Next, think of something
that maybe you've been making an excuse about to yourself.
Forget everybody else.
What excuses have you been giving yourself?
Maybe write it down,
or think of it in your head, and then,
find the way to flip it around completely.
Offer yourself a completely different perspective,
even if it feels ridiculous.
If you wanna stop making excuses,
find the excuses and flip them on their head.
So if the excuse is, I can't leave my job
until I have a new one lined up.
And I haven't had time to find a new one.
What's the opposite of that?
Well, I could leave my job, if I line up a new one.
So where am I going to find the time for that?
Now it's a new question.
Now it's not an excuse.
Now it's not something
that's allowing you to stay in your comfort zone.
Now, its a challenge for you.
When could you find the time?
How much Netflix you been watching lately, hon?
And that leads me to my next thought.
Maybe there are some things that you've been wanting to do,
but you haven't started in fear of failure or the unknown.
What excuses have you been making there?
Can you reverse-engineer them?
Can you maybe just give them a chance?
The biggest first step here
is just identifying that they exist.
You may not even know at this point
that you're still serving yourself with excuses.
Find them, write them down, keep track of them.
Stare them in the face, and then,
find out how badly you want to address them, and do it.
You do not get to do everything.
You cannot have everything.
You cannot even do anything.
But you don't have to be
the most ambitious person in the world
to give yourself a chance on something
that you've been holding back from yourself.
Another tip I have is for you to just listen to yourself.
When you start to really hear the words
that are coming out of your mouth,
understand how many excuses
you're actually putting out into the world.
Maybe they're not big,
maybe they're just in these flippant moments.
Maybe they have nothing to do
with your big life plans that haven't started yet.
But just count them.
Just count how easy it is for them to rack up.
Maybe even write them down after you hear yourself say them.
Keep a small notebook with you or something.
Or type them in your phone.
Tally up all those excuses and start to realize,
is this the mindset that you're truly leading with?
Next, it's gonna be a lot easier
for you to make less excuses
when you give yourself more attainable goals.
It can be really tempting to watch a lot of YouTube videos
and think that you want to try some new things,
you wanna learn some new things.
And then, make the excuse
that the person that's telling you to do it is
a unicorn
who is, like, perfect in some way
or has the perfect situation to be able to do the things
that you wanna do, but you can't.
That's an excuse.
Are you actually looking into attainable things?
Is it possible?
Is it something you want?
Then, instead of trying to categorize somebody as a unicorn,
maybe try to be one yourself.
And by trying to be one, I simply mean
taking the small steps to get started
toward something you actually want.
My next step is to come up with a no-excuses mantra.
One that I personally suggest
and need to use more often is, I make mistakes, I am human.
This taps into the typical excuse that I like to give
when I'm not doing something perfectly right.
I always have my excuse ready to go
when somebody's trying to attack me on some level
that I'm not doing something right
because I'm doing it my way.
But I could very well be doing it wrong,
because you know what?
I make mistakes, I am human.
That mantra has been really helpful for me,
instead of, for me, getting on the defensive
and trying to give a bunch of excuses
as to why somebody needs to leave me alone
and stop trying to tell me
how to do something differently or change.
I can't change that person, they might try to change me.
But I also don't have to change
just because someone told me to.
And I also don't have to lash out
or serve up excuses because of it.
I make mistakes,
I am human.
And finally, just track your biggest hangups.
What are those excuses that you are tallying up?
Are there any that carry a theme?
Is there something that's always wrong all the time?
You don't have enough money.
You don't have the right education.
You don't have the right experience.
You don't know how to do something.
These are all typical easy, easy excuses that we all say.
Track those big hangups and flip them on their head.
What can you do to make an adjustment?
What can you do to make a change?
Which one of those excuses bothers you so much
that you say it,
because you know could do something about it?
Sometimes excuses are actually desired by the other party.
And you can do them elegantly,
and in a way that is respectful of others.
I am actually going through the specific way
that you can do this, and start practicing it,
in my Shine Squad.
The details for the are below, if you are interested.
All right, let's share what we learned today in a Tweetable.
"He that is good for making excuses
"is seldom good for anything else."
Benjamin Franklin.
All right, what do you make the biggest excuse about?
I wanna hear from you in the comments below.
Is it being late, is it not doing your homework,
is it not working out?
That last one, I feel you.
Leave it down below.
Let's talk about what your biggest excuses in life are.
That's all for today, thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes,
kiss the ones you love, and go after the life you want.
Cheers.
(lively music)