I tried something new this year; I stopped making excuses. Whenever I forgot to do a task or let an email fall through the cracks, I told the truth. I didn’t make up an excuse. In fact, I stopped believing in making excuses. I admitted my screw ups and accepted the responsibility. I apologized and I made amends. And you know what? It’s helped me grow in both my business and personal life.
I’m not saying any of this in a rah-rah, get off your butt and get motivated sort of way. I’m not much into cheerleading, to be honest. However, I realized that once I started learning from my mistakes, accepted my mistakes, and held myself accountable for my mistakes, I became more successful, and people believed in me more. Not because I swept stuff under the rug or just hoped it would blow over, but because I said, “Yeah, I effed up. I can give you a good excuse why that happened but that’s not going to change anything. So let’s move forward and see how we can rectify the situation. Let’s see what I can do to get you to trust me again.”
Here’s what I learned this year:
- Being positive makes a difference – everything has a bright side. Dwelling on negativity just makes things more negative.
- People don’t trust me when all I do is make excuses. They think I’m a flake.
- Excuses don’t change a thing. They only lead to more explanations and more excuses.
- I’m not a responsible person if I screw up and make excuses as to why something wasn’t done, done right, or done to the best of my ability.
At the beginning of 2010, I took a vow of positivity. Go ahead and laugh if you want, others did. They call me the “positivity police” or “Polly Perky” and other names, but you know what? That’s all well and good. Because being positive made me look at things in a different manner. Rather than go off on a rant, or get my bitch on, I looked at the positive side of a situation and rectified it. I didn’t get loud. I didn’t freak out all over Twitter. I didn’t complain to everyone in sight. I didn’t make excuses. I changed the situations that didn’t work for me.
Almost every negative situation in my life, is my fault. Most can be written off to lack of concern, lack of attention or lack of caring. As soon as I stopped attributing negativity and mistakes to other people and other situations, I became a much better person.
Now you may not think this applies to you, and that’s fine. And you may think this a bunch of hokey, motivational crap, and that’s fine too. I know that my change of outlook and attitude worked wonders for me, and that’s why I’m sharing. Take it with a grain of salt or take it to heart….you know what works best for you.
