Why Do You Have To Run Out Of Excuses Soon?

Harold S. Kushner wrote a wonderful book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” as a reaction to personal tragedy – his son Aaron died prematurely. This book is dedicated to anyone “who has been hurt by life”, to help people find a faith that can aid them in getting through their troubles, rather than making things worse.

Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to us?

I have. I can not say that I have figured out the answer to this question. I guess I am just not wise enough to understand God’s ways. But I am sure about one thing – every event, every situation, every problem or opportunity always has a cause.

In our case we always have two choices:

1. We can either believe that “things just happen to you” and attribute that cause to an external event (like bad economy, controlling parents, insensitive spouse, stupid boss and even a damn dog)

2. Or we can view ourselves as a cause of events and accept full responsibility for everything that happens in our life, no matter if it is good or bad.

The first option does carry more appeal in the short-term perspective. After all it is easy to think that everything that happens to us is not our fault. It is easy to play the role of a victim and receive an affectionate pat on the shoulder, together with a sympathetic smile and the advice to “cheer up”.

However, in the long-term perspective blaming someone or something for your misfortunes is a dangerous thing to do. As soon as you become a victim of circumstance you have only three options:

• Run from your troubles
• Hide from them
• Submissively accept them and suffer the consequences

None of the three options sounds particularly inspiring, do they? Being a victim is not easy. It comes at a price of a lot of emotional, physical and mental pain.

Accepting responsibility for everything good and bad that happens to you, may be also at first a hard pill to swallow. But it is the only way to gain control of your life, turn your bad luck around, stop being seen as a failure and gain other people’s respect and admiration.

How do you see your life?

• Do you believe that you can change yourself and circumstances? Or do you often feel powerless and trapped in your own problems and negative situations?
• Do you want to create and contribute to something bigger than yourself? Or are you concentrated on just getting by and providing for your family?
• Do you feel comfortable with being who you are? Or do you have a strong need to make other people like you?
• Do you consider yourself an optimistic person? Or do you prefer to prepare yourself for the worst possible outcome to avoid feeling disappointed if things do not work out?
• Do you have long term goals and a clear vision of what your future should be like? Or do you prefer not to plan ahead, because your plans never come true?
• And most the important question to ask yourself is do you consider the Universe a friendly place? Or do you believe that you have to struggle for that little bit happiness that life might give you?

Life is neither a continuous vacation nor is it a struggle, but our thinking makes it so.

If you are tired of worrying what another day may bring you… if the thought that other people pity you gives you goose bumps… if you do not want to live in fear and uncertainty any more… if you are fed up with other people making important decisions for you…

It is time to let go of all the excuses and take back control of your life.

Here are 3 steps you can take to do just that:

1. Accept that you are the only person responsible for your life. I know that it is already hard enough to accept responsibility for the problems that we have brought on ourselves, not to mention the situations that we could not predict or control.

The truth is that you may do everything right, think all the right thoughts, be a wonderful caring person and you may still have to face difficulties and obstacles on your way. But unless you start to think of yourself as the only cause of everything that happens and does not happen in your life, you will not be able to change anything.

2. Focus on solutions, not on problems. Finding an event or a person at fault does nothing to resolve a problem. Instead of pointing fingers, dwelling on your misfortunes, or torturing yourself with a question “Why me?!” concentrate your thoughts on finding a solution and changing the situation. It is a much better use of your energy.

3. Learn your lessons. Psychologists all over the world keep discovering evidence that problems are the strongest motivator to our personal growth. When everything is fine, we tend to relax and just enjoy it. But only by facing challenges can we discover what we are made of and go past our limits.

The best way to deal with your problems is learn from them. There is always a lesson behind every obstacle. Our only task is to understand it.

Wise people say that if a certain event happens just one time in our life, it can be considered an accident. An event that happened twice is a coincidence. But if the same situation is repeated several times it becomes normality.

What is the problem that continues to arise in your life? Usually we repeat certain actions, until they become hard-wired in our brain and then turn into patterns of behavior. Since we continue to repeat the same actions, we habitually find ourselves having to face the same problems. Until we make a conscious effort to change our counter-productive behavior, let go of old excuses and learn from our mistakes, we will keep getting the same results.

Tags: automatic behavior patterns, let go of excuses, resolve problems fast, steps to gain control, stop being a victim, take responsibility