“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.” ~D. Wilder, B. Rechin
I was looking over the list of goals I wrote out twelve months ago. The list is of twenty-eight goals to reach within eighteen months. Some reality based and some are not so much, given the time they were written.
For example, last December when writing them I wrote I wanted to run a half marathon. Having never run before this was a ‘reach’ kind of goal. On August 1, 2010 I ran a half marathon in Chicago. Was it hard, yep. Was it a commitment, yep. Were there a thousand and one excuses I could have used to justify not doing it, absolutely. But the first excuse would have been the first step towards failure. And the second excuse would have made it easier to come up and present a third excuse, and so on and so on. Were there days that I had to sacrifice something to go run? Sure, plenty of them. But isn’t that what goals are about?
If you are not willing to sacrifice for a goal, do not make it a goal. That would be wasting your time and the time of anyone else involved. A goal equals a priority. So ask yourself whether or not your goal is your priority. If money is your priority then chances are you will always sacrifice fitness, friends, etc. for work. If friends are your priority, that is great, but make sure your goals can be incorporated. As long as you are comfortable and happy with your priorities it is all good. However, if you are not, then you need to realign your priorities prior to setting and committing to goals. Otherwise you will end up with nothing but excuses at day’s end.