Here’s one thing every successful person wants more of: CONTROL.
There are a lot of things in life we have no control over. The economy. The weather. Other people.
I had no control over much of the earliest parts of my life—divorced parents, homelessness, lack of education and medical attention, barely enough money to eat day to day. However, once I hit my early teens, I started taking control.
I hustled a couple of jobs cleaning houses and working in a flower shop to be able to feed myself and buy clothes. I started sneaking medicine when I needed it. I also signed up for a free “Computer 101” class at the local community college and started teaching myself how to type and use Microsoft Office applications. At the time, I’d never seen, much less read, a single book on motivation, goal setting, success, etc. I was simply trying to escape a lot of uncertainty and pain in my life and gain some level of security.
Fast-forward several years, and I bought Tony Robbins’ Personal Power and listened to him tell me that I was EXACTLY where I was in life—financially, professionally, and in my personal relationships—because that’s exactly where I CHOSE to be.
Why Excuses Are So Dangerous
Here’s where I was when I first heard Tony telling me this…
I had just gotten out of a failed business that left me penniless. I was driving to Nashville with everything I owned in the back seat of a Pontiac to start a new job. I had absolutely no money in savings. I had just divorced a man I was briefly married to (less than a year), who was verbally and mentally abusive and growing closer to physical abuse every day. I didn’t have a retirement fund, a home, or any other personal assets—just debt and my own stubborn attitude that life was unfair.
So, when Tony said I was right where I wanted to be, I thought he was absolutely, 100% wrong.
After all, the business failed because my ex was not providing the support he had promised. The guy I married? Well, everyone said we were a perfect match! My former employers screwed me out of money. I didn’t have a college education because my parents provided me with zero financial support. Hell, my mother would hit ME up for money! I was really young and inexperienced, so nobody would give me a break. All of this is TRUE, which is why excuses are so dangerous. There’s always a vein of truth in them.
It took me a while to stop arguing and start thinking.
Everything bad in my life was 100% my own doing. I CHOSE to spend all my money instead of saving it. I CHOSE to marry that knucklehead, even though the warning signs were off the charts. I CHOSE to start that business with a too-heavy dependency on my partner. Sure, I was green and didn’t know what I didn’t know, but that’s still on ME. When I was finally mature enough to take full responsibility for my situation, I came to this realization LONG before Jocko Willink, retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, popularized it:
RESPONSIBILITY = CONTROL
CONTROL = FREEDOM
If you take all your personal, career, financial, and other goals—everything you think you want out of life—and boil all that down to a single overriding objective, it is the desire for greater freedom.
Freedom from debt and money worries. Freedom to do what you want, when you want it. Freedom from sickness and poor health. Freedom from problems with your family. Freedom from business failure and friction.
Ironically, as much as people SAY they want greater freedom, they give it away whenever they make an excuse for not achieving an objective. Of course, they don’t think they’re making excuses, because they’ll articulate it like this:
I “can’t” ___________ because…
- My clients/business/situation is DIFFERENT.
- The competition is too tough.
- The economy is terrible.
- I don’t have enough money.
- EVERYONE refuses to spend money and wants the cheapest price.
- You can’t find good salespeople/techs/employees.
- It’s just the way I was brought up.
- It’s the way I’m wired. (I’m a TECH, Robin!!!)
- It’s my partner/co-worker/spouse/etc.
- It’s ___________
Take Responsibility, Gain Freedom
These are the same excuses I hear over and over again from people struggling to grow, struggling with marketing, struggling to ever get anything productive cooking in their business CONSISTENTLY.
Each and every time you say, “It’s the _____________,” you do two things simultaneously: 1) You push away a small weight of responsibility, which temporarily makes you feel better; and 2) You give up an equal-sized amount of CONTROL.
Whenever we deny responsibility, we give up freedom. Get rid of a pound of responsibility, lose a pound of freedom.
By now you’ve set your New Year’s goals and maybe, just maybe, you’re going to stretch yourself a bit more and take FULL RESPONSIBILITY and CONTROL over your life, finances, and business. Are you broke? Struggling in business? Out of shape? Look back at all the choices you made that got you there and then start making better choices.
You cannot control a lot, but you CAN control YOU.
