ON THE SUCCESS ROAD...

NEVER TRADE RESULTS WITH EXCUSES

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot… and missed. I have failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan

John Mason puts it powerfully when he writes, ‘don’t spend half your life telling what you are going to do and the other half explaining why you didn’t do it.’ I think this is great. I great reason for why we fail is our inventive capacity with excuses. We don’t like admitting that the reason for our failure is our refusal to look at alternatives, to see the big picture or simply, to be response-able. When you use excuses, you give up your power to change and improve. You can fall down many times, but you won’t be a failure until you say that someone else pushed you. Above all, believing in God assures you of being forgiven and of energy called Grace to lift you up. Most importantly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, one can shape up and start again. Remember, Holiness is not in never sinning but in rising up every time we fall. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Stop playing the blame game, nobody wins this game by the way, and start living your life to the full.

Failures are experts at making excuses. There are always enough excuses available if you are weak enough to use them. However, there is no excuse for being full of excuses! When you make a mistake and then you make an excuse for it, you have made two mistakes. You wasted time and creative energies when thinking up excuses. Instead, get up and work, think big ideas that you’ll be proud off. An excuse is a foundation upon which one builds a house of failure. Most failures are people who are professional at giving excuses for why they failed and that they are not to blame. Challenges are not problems until you see them so. See in every difficulty, the fire that purifies gold. Follow the ant philosophy; if you find a block on your path, try going around it, under it, over it but don’t you give up. No excuse will ever support you purpose in life. The person who really wants to do something finds a way, the others find an excuse. Failures say that success is luck, the successful say that it is focus plus daily improvement over time. Choose where you belong and block those excuses. When excuses come, say, ‘Excuse me please, I’ve got to pass!!