Decision making and excuses, this is a subject that comes up a lot in business, relationships.
I’ve seen people grapple with this on events that I’ve done.
It was a communication event and two people both ended up having to communicate with their partners because they realised they hadn’t necessarily made decisions they needed to make that relationship which would lead to them, possibly not staying together.
This whole thing about decision-making is such a big subject.
I’ve been to events where my team is talking to people and you know they want to make a decision, but are afraid to do so.
A classic example when I teach property for example, on the first day everyone’s really super pumped they go home to talk to mum, dad, uncle and brother. Whatever it is and that person pisses all over their dream puts them off and then at that point there they come back the next day and they can’t look me in the eye.
They literally dodge me and the team because they don’t want to have the one conversation they know they need to have, which is the real truth about what is blocking them. What’s holding them back, because they know it’s a bullshit excuse, but they still have to make it.
Typical excuses people make to make a decision have no time and money. My brother won’t let me do it. My wife or my husband won’t let me do it. The weather will change tomorrow. I’ve got another job and I can’t do that, I’ll wait till Covid is over. When it comes to decision-making it’s really simple. The simple way to deal with this is to have a statement which you write down freaking everywhere.
The statement turns your excuse into the reason why you need to do it.
So, for example, when someone says I don’t have the time I say that’s exactly why you need to do it. It’s like property investing. They want to get passive income and financial freedom for themselves.
They’ve got the time back, but not the time to do it. Surely that is the reason they have to do it because nothing’s going to change. When people say they have no time my response is you’re never going to have time as you always make excuses.
Easiest thing to do is accept that you’re limited on time and then say that’s the very reason why I need to build this business to win back more time to do the things I want to do. I’ve got no money.
Here is another excuse. How long have you been working? 15 years. 15 years and you’ve got no money in the bank account. When I was 35, I sat in a room with a Canadian trainer property courses 20K and I had every excuse to say I don’t have money and I didn’t have the money.
I’m 35, a consultant going through a tough time in my life. I could have made all those excuses, how is it with a PhD 35 years of age I didn’t have 20K sitting in my bank account. Why is it I meet people in the audiences 40, 45, 50, 30, 35, working in a career for 10, 15, 20 years.
Surely if you’ve been working to save 12 years, couldn’t you save two grand a year? People work for 10, 15 years and can’t scrape together two, three, four, five grand, that tells me that whatever vehicle they’re in is not working and that’s what I’ve discovered over the years. In front of an audience I ask people and how long have you been working? 20 years and I’m pissed off.
Not only are you pissed off, you’ve been working for 20 years and you can’t find 20 grand? Something is not working, so we have to turn our excuse into the very reason why we need to do this. You want to be financially free as an example and your partner won’t let you do it.
Is your partner financially free? No, he works really long or she works long hours.
Go back to your partner and ask this question, if you don’t want me to do this give me another solution. What is your answer to me getting into financial freedom, so us as a family can spend more time together.
Most of the time they’ll say let’s just wait to see what happens. You have to take control. If you’ve got a partner that is negative and not supporting you the easiest thing to do is to tell you love them, which you do dearly love them and assuming they trust you because you are in a loving relationship.
You’ve got to say I love this. I’m doing this and making the investment in myself but guess what we’ve spent time in front of the TV, we’ve spent properly three or four a year on shit like cable TV, drinking out, cars to be financially free or whatever it is you want to do. But do not make money and time the excuse.
And then they complain the boss doesn’t pay them, nobody owes us anything, we came to this earth with nothing.
Just give yourself permission to stop making excuses and make the very excuse the reason why you have to do it.
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