No Excuses

In Get Rid of Excuses and Get Ahead from Cool Cat Teacher Blog by coolcatteacher@gmail.com, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, asks,

“Are you making excuses for yourself? Are you blaming others? If others are truly at fault, how will you respond?”

I tend to make excuses when I’m trying not to do what I know needs to be done. To avoid what I should be doing, I do all the other things that I normally avoid. This way, I feel like I’m doing things I don’t like, so I don’t feel so bad. I rationalize that I’m doing things that had to be done. When in reality, if I put them off for longer, it wouldn’t really matter. I’m only making an excuse not to do what I need to do.

I really don’t blame others but I do put a lot of blame on myself. Sometimes I blame myself so much that I feel bad and don’t want to try. Then I think that this is just an excuse to avoid failure. I guess it is just a vicious cycle and I have to really work hard to break out of it.

I’ve started a new routing where I list all the things I have to do. I am making myself do them in the order of the worst is the first. Once I get the worse thing out of the way, it actually makes the others easier to do. I’m learning that I can get a lot more done this way and still have time to do the things that I want to do.

In fact, since I’m not finding excuses not to do things, I’m getting more things done. I’m happier with my productivity.

Of course, realistically, there are some things that have to be done first, even if it isn’t the worst. But if I move things like that off the list and only list things that I have flexibility with, it makes things less overwhelming. It is like taking one step at a time rather than being overwhelmed by the big picture.

Others might not find the list of things I do as horrible as I do but each individual may see things differently.

I think if I had my students do this, it would help them be more productive also. I think my students would be more successful in their daily living.

How do you get around your own excuses? Please share.

Photo: 20110120-dont-make-excuses by Chris Piascik