Stop Making Excuses, Start Getting Results!

Image courtesy Studio One-One, Flickr

Yesterday I saw a quote from fitness and weight loss giant Tom Venuto on Twitter that really got me thinking. Here’s the quote:

You can either make excuses or get results, but you can’t do both!

How many of us are guilty of this? How many of us really want to achieve something, but we let all of the excuses get in the way instead? And what do we get in return? A bunch of excuses and no results to show for it.

Overcoming Excuses

It’s easy to make excuses. Life will continue to happen, things will always come up that seem to take priority, or we can always think of something else we’d rather do.

In the end, it all comes down to one thing: how passionate are you about your goal? If you have a goal that you’re trying to achieve and you’re keyed in on that goal, you’ll stop making excuses. Instead you’ll find ways to accomplish that goal because of your desire to do so.

That’s why you’ll find in most books on exercise, nutrition, or really anything else that has to do with self improvement you find they always have at least one (if not more) chapters dedicated to having the right attitude or mindset. It’s because you can have all of the technical knowledge in the world, but if your goal isn’t something that motivates you it doesn’t matter!

Developing the Passion

Unfortunately, I don’t believe there is just one simple way to keep yourself motivated. This is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ type thing. Instead, you have to find out what motivates you! Here are some ideas. Try different things and see what works for you, or in other words what keeps you motivated:

• Read stories of people that have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
• Create a picture file of people that represent what you want to accomplish.
• Subscribe to other blogs of people going through transformations and comment on their blogs. Be socially involved online with other people trying to accomplish goals, too.
• Take action! Sometimes just doing something can be motivating in and of itself.
• Track your progress. If you can see what you’ve accomplished so far it can motivate you to keep working towards your goal.

I do a combination of the things listed above. I have a few pictures that I look at from time to time that remind me of my goal. I also track my progress to see the changes that are happening. And I’ll also read other people’s blogs to gain motivation from them. I got the quote at the beginning of this post by interacting with people on Twitter, which is another great thing to do.

Set Effective Goals to Stay Focused

In order to achieve your goal you have to really want it. Set small and realistic goals that you can accomplish. This way you can start to see results and you can keep moving forward. A great way to demotivate yourself is to have a goal that is unreachable in the short term. Most people can only focus on something for 1-3 months at a time, so set your goals in that time frame.

My idea here is not to go in depth on how to set goals. There are plenty of other blogs out there that can teach you all about that. But it is important to have goals that you can work towards.

Choose – Don’t Make Excuses

I had the pleasure of attending a speech a few weeks ago by motivational speaker Mark Sanborn. He said something really profound that also really got me thinking about how to achieve goals. Here’s the quote:

The most powerful tool for living fully is to be engaged in the present moment… The successes in life are those who live intentionally.

So just make sure that when you do something that you intentionally chose to do it. Then it can’t be considered an excuse. As long as you chose to do it, be happy with your choice. You choose to work out. You choose to eat right, you also choose not to eat right. Don’t let it become an excuse or circumstance that is ‘out of your control.’ This way you’ll be more aware of your choices and be able to make better choices each and every day.

Conclusion

I really feel that this is an area that all of us can work on. I include myself in this. And being that it’s almost 2009, now is the time to start thinking about how you’re going to set goals for the new year. I wish you luck in achieving your goals, and hopefully some of these tips help you do just that!