When was the last time you heard your customer, employee, supplier or business partner utter an excuse? Are you tired of hearing “I can’t afford it”, “I am too busy”, “It is too hard”, etc.? Would you like to turn excuses into solutions?

What are Excuses?

You have probably heard lots of excuses in your business/organisation. Excuses take many forms – the economy, the weather, traffic, fears, self doubts, being tired, etc. Prospects have probably said that they do not have the money or the time to work with you, customers may have made excuses for delaying paying you for completed work, suppliers may have made excuses why they are unable to provide you with stock on a certain date, employees may have made excuses about being late for work or why they are unable to deliver on a project, etc.

Excuses are reflected in the language that we use. When you hear “yes, we can…, but..” usually an excuse follows the “but”. When you hear “I can’t….”, “It won’t….”, etc. these are also excuses. Underpinning these excuses are often unconscious beliefs that sabotage our success. For example, if someone consistently makes the excuse “I can’t afford it”, after a while they may start to believe it and that becomes their reality. Their whole personal and professional life revolves around lack and that is what they keep creating for as long as they have that belief. They program their mind for lack and scarcity, therefore they miss seeing the opportunities as they present themselves.

Empowered Leaders Listen for Excuses

Empowered leaders listen for excuses and really understand what is going on for other people so that they can empower them. Anytime you hear anyone rationalize why they do not have the result that they want, they are making excuses for not having their result. For example, “I did not reach my sales target this month because of the economy.” What is interesting is that in this economic environment, I have heard a number of salespeople say “My sales are up this month because of the economy.” Excuses are simply that, just reasons for not having the results that we want. What is also interesting is that once we stop making excuses, our results improve dramatically!

As a leader, when you accept other people’s excuses you are disempowering them and yourself at the same time. You keep them stuck in their problem by accepting their excuse and you become the facilitator of their excuses. Once we stop accepting other people’s excuses, we become true leaders and inspire and empower them and ourselves to succeed. You can either chose to accept other people’s excuses or to empower them with solutions and possibilities.

The Benefits of Being Excuse-Free

Excuses stop you and your team from achieving their full potential and operating at their peak level of performance. When you as a leader are accountable to yourself and are excuse-free, you will attract people who are accountable too. Like attracts like! You will likely attract people into your team like you. However, if you find yourself making excuses, you will likely attract people who also make excuses.

Excuses take a lot of effort, focus and energy – it takes some creativity to come up with a different excuse each time. How much brain power, mental focus and energy did it take to create and come up with the excuses in the first place? Probably longer than it would have taken for you/your team to do whatever you avoided doing. Imagine the results you and your team could achieve if you redirected that energy and mental focus towards generating creative solutions for your business/organisation.

Excuse Yourself from Excuses

Before you can stop accepting other people’s excuses, first you need to stop making excuses yourself. The most successful leaders in business are unwilling to accept their own excuses! Once you stop accepting your own excuses (including any negative self talk, self doubts, fears, beating up on yourself, etc), it is a lot easier to stop accepting other people’s excuses, because you are far more objective to come up with solutions. You are then in a much more resourceful state to handle other people’s objections and excuses, and empower them to see beyond those limitations to achieve greater success.

Dr. Vesna Grubacevic is an author, speaker, media commentator, the founder and Performance Transformation Expert® with award-winning company, Qt. She is the creator of breakthrough behavioural change techniques, holds a PhD, a BEc and has over 35 years’ business experience, including working directly with CEOs, senior executives and their teams to assist them to create exceptional results. Her Amazon best-selling book, Stop Sabotaging Your Confidence, has also been gifted to Hollywood and Australian award winners, nominees, hosts and celebrities. For additional free resources please visit www.qttransformation.com

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