Don't Make Excuses For Your Problems

There was a young man that came to see me yesterday about a problem he had. When I asked him to tell me the whole story he seemed to leave out certain pieces to the puzzle. I then asked him to start over and I got a completely different story. Finally when I told him without knowing exactly what he did wrong I couldn't help, he became very defensive. 

I understand where these feelings come from because no one wants to accept blame when things go wrong. We all distort the truth in our head of what really happened to protect ourselves from guilt. In reality we all need to learn to accept our mistakes rather than deny the fact that we are ever wrong. We will blame any other circumstance to avoid blaming ourselves many times. 

In school did you ever not study for a test, and then when you fail you tell everyone that the teacher didn't cover all that material? There are times when they don't but more often than not you just don't want to admit that it was your own fault for failing. You may have gotten into trouble when you were younger and it was automatically your friends idea the moment you get caught. 

We don't take responsibility for our actions the way we should. I told that young client of mine that the first step to fixing his problem was not to blame everything else, but to realize when he was in the wrong. We cause ourselves a lot more grief by not admitting our faults. Deep down you will know this and you will end up feeling worse that if you just admit it openly as soon as it happens. 

If you are making excuses for yourself like I and many others have in the past, STOP NOW! Make yourself stronger by dealing with your problems head on and knowing the real cause. If you blame everyone else every time you will keep making the same mistakes the rest of your life. Stay positive and keep striving to live better.