Be Smarter Than Your Excuses

I wish I could say I came up with the phrase, “Be stronger than your excuses”, but I did not. I know I've heard or read it several times somewhere. Wherever it came from is not the point. I want to modify this statement to say “Be smarter than your excuses”. The original term is stronger than our excuses. This statement implies brute force willpower, which never works. The people who have had the most success overcoming their excuses do so by changing their mindset. They have been able to ask themselves questions that will lead to a better answer than their excuse. For example if you want to eat that last brownie, but you know you shouldn’t, so you come up with an excuse of “I’ll just eat better tomorrow.” You know full well that’s a cheap excuse and you can outsmart it. You can easily say that, “It’s not going to bring me any more pleasure than the brief moment of tasting it.” or “If I put off eating healthy one day then I’m only cheating myself.” If you leave it up to willpower every time you are faced with a choice then you eventually will stop enjoying the process and start resenting it. Willpower can only get you so far. But your intelligence will get you farther.