Life, internal dialogs and other excuses...

It's been crazy around here! When life bombards with stress its easy to start making excuses. I've been thinking about writing and I've been wanting to write but I've been making excuses. I even thought I'd write about all the excuses why I haven't written - as if you are really interested in my excuses or the stress in my life. After pondering all this I decided that my excuses aren't helping me and surely wouldn't help you if I were to pour them out for your reading pleasure.

So why do we make excuses? Fear is probably one of the main reasons we make excuses, fear of failure, rejection, effort and success, fear of change. I think many of us dislike change even if we don't notice that about ourselves. When things stay the same it feels normal. There's nothing to fear because we know what to expect, we know what is expected of us and we know that the amount of effort needed doesn't change much either. When things feel normal we think we know ourselves but deep down we know there is something missing.

For me I'm sure that I'm afraid of success. Sounds strange but I have noticed a pattern of failing to try and quitting just before reaching the goal. Is that crazy or what? But I know now that my excuses and my fear are part of the reason I started this blog. Fear and excuses have caused me to miss out and to feel the desire for knowing myself better.

We all have an internal dialog. Part of the excuse habit stems from the constant conversation we have with ourselves. If we remind ourselves of our fears and justify our excuses then we'll never get where we want to be with ourselves.

No one ever excused his way to success.  ~Dave Del Dotto

So where to go from here? I'm starting by rereading The Power of Words
I obviously need to remind myself of the importance of making an effort to have a polite and kind inner dialog. When I catch myself justifying my excuses instead of taking the action that I truly am capable of I'm going to change my thoughts and change my words. I'm going to work hard at not accepting guilt I haven't earned including guilt that I needlessly put on myself. I'm going to make goals and keep records of progress. It is important to notice progress (even baby steps) and to take pride in that - even reward myself.

I also think I'll do some research on some of the people I admire. Starting with Benjamin Franklin. Every time I search online or pick up a book about self confidence, drive, taking responsibility and all the things I'd like to improve on, there I find a quote or mention of Ben Franklin and his words seem to always inspire. So I'll start there and I'll start now.

When and where will you start?


He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin

The Power of Words

As a child I remember standing with all the strength I could muster and bravely declaring, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me!" Even in that moment while my feelings were truly hurt I'd stand there and try to convince myself and my demon that I was invincible to the painful words.  Looking back and looking at the now I see the falsehood (and the truth) in that dauntless statement.  


We learn from parenting magazines and books that words can help or hinder our child's growth. We offer praise (probably too much) and feel guilty when our words weren't what we believe they should have been. All because we know that words are powerful. We also attempt to teach our children that words can't hurt them. If some one is mean to you, you have a choice to walk away. You have a choice to ignore the words that otherwise might cause you grief. I sincerely hope my children learn this. 


But can I successfully teach something I don't successfully practice?  I'm blessed to be surrounded with people who don't purposefully speak to me in hateful ways. My own thoughts however aren't always so nice. Self verbal abuse is not uncommon and yet hardly recognized. I find myself regularly thinking the worst about myself and thoughts are really just unspoken words. Is it really as easy as looking in the mirror every morning and saying "I am a self confident and hard working woman." If I do that will I achieve my goals? I do believe that the negative self talk is part of what has gotten me to this point in my life where I'm not pleased with myself so maybe its true that if you tell yourself something long enough you'll start believing. But there is more to it than that. Effort has to be exerted. So I tell myself I am what I want to be and then I practice it as hard as I can. 

To live is to be in a constant state of decision making. I can decide to ignore the meanie on the playground but those hurt feelings won't necessarily heal instantly. I'll have to continue deciding that those words aren't true, those words don't matter. I have to change the words in my head to words that heal. 


So today, I am a confident, beautiful and productive woman! Now I must go get to work on that!  

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, non but ourselves can free our own minds." -Bob Marley