Remember when you were a kid and you forgot to do your homework?

There was always that joke – I didn’t do my homework because the dog ate it.

And how often did the dog actually eat your homework? And actually, did you even have a dog?

The point is you can come up with any number of creative, outlandish or logical excuses why you might not do your homework – from being abducted by aliens to I was watching TV – and for the most part, none of the excuses will actually be true.

The thing is it’s the same concept when it comes to goals and secret dreams.

As humans, we are hard-wired to come up with reasons (aka excuses) why we shouldn’t go after our goals and dreams for reasons we’ll get onto in a minute.

But first, here are some of the famous excuses we tend to throw about.

 “I don’t have the money”

 “I don’t have the time/I’m too busy”

 “My partner/parents/boss/next door neighbour [insert other random person] wouldn’t approve/don’t think it’s a good idea or would think it was selfish of me”

 “I’m not confident enough”

 “I’m not ready”

 “I’m too tired/don’t have the energy/not in the mood/not motivated enough”

 “I should clean the car/devote myself to my children/stick with the job I don’t like because it’s expected of me and I need to pay the bills [insert any other random reason of things you think you “should” be doing other than actually what you “want” to do]”

 “It’s scary/too hard”

 “The weather is crap”

“I’m too old”

 “I’m not that sort of person/I couldn’t do that/I’m not good enough”

…You get the picture.

​So, why do we make excuses?

It’s to do with evolution and how we’ve been programmed – which means it’s also a perfectly normal human thing to do.

Especially when it comes to our goals and dreams.

It all comes down to the reptilian part of our brain, often referred to as the Ego Mind, and which governs the fight or flight response.

It’s been designed to protect us and keep us safe so anything that it deems as a threat to our survival will send it into overdrive.

The thing is goals and dreams fall into this “threat” category because they represent change, growth, the unknown, something new, a challenge to the status quo.

And the Ego Mind doesn’t like that – it like the familiar and certainty. It just wants to keep you safe and in your comfort zone.

So, to do that, it will do everything in its power to stop you putting your toe in the water and going after your goals and dreams.

And one of the trusty tools it falls back on to do this is coming up with excuses.

Essentially, it’s making up reasons (often very logical sounding) why it’s a good idea not to go after your goals and dreams.

Now the problem isn’t that we make excuses. The problem is that we buy into these excuses and believe them to be true and we let them dictate our behaviour.

So, we procrastinate, we stay stuck and in limbo, we feel frustrated, we struggle to make decisions – and our goals and dreams never happen.

What’s helpful to recognise is that from a psychological perspective, an excuse masks a fear – namely the fear of going after your goal or dream.

Maybe it’s the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of being judged.

The Ego Mind has been primed to avoid fear – that’s the flight response. It doesn’t want to feel it so it comes up with an excuse so it doesn’t have to.

But here’s the kicker, this is just a minxy way to get you to stay small and safe. They feel real, they seem so logical and reasonable…

…But excuses are never true.

I mean, think about it…

💡 How often do you say you don’t have the money only to then spend the same amount of money on something else?

💡 How often do you say you don’t have the time only to miraculously find the time to do something “less scary”?

💡 How often do you say you’re too tired and then stay up late?

💡 How often do you say you’re too old and then later act like a 20-year-old?

Like I said, it’s all perfectly normal. This is how the system has been designed to keep us safe.

So, what do you do? How can you stop making excuses?

1) Raise your awareness – write out all the stories, all the excuses, you tell yourself why you can’t go after your goal or dream.

​2) Be honest with yourself – recognise it’s an excuse and that it’s the part of your brain designed to keep you safe. Look for the holes. Ask how is the excuse not true? What examples can you think of that are evidence against the excuse or prove it to not be true? Ask yourself why are you making the excuse, what are you really scared of? What is the excuse masking? (This can be confronting so be kind to yourself and seek support if you need it.)

​3) Reframe – instead of coming up with excuses why you can’t, start coming up with a list of reasons why you can and why you should (“because I want to” is a perfectly valid reason). Make a “what if” list of all the good things that might happen if you didn’t make an excuse and just started going after your goals and dreams. (For example, what if I made lots of money, what if I got to be friends with a celebrity, what if I got to go on TV, what if I was really happy with my life).

​4) Take action – action is always the antidote so what one small action or step could you take right now? Don’t make it big. Just something really small. Take it and see what happens. What else occurs to you?

​It’s ok to feel scared. It’s part of our human experience.

What isn’t ok, is sabotaging ourselves, our hopes and dreams.

We’re meant to thrive!

We’re more awesome than we think we are.

Own Your Awesome!