Everyone makes excuses. They are shields that we use to protect ourselves from embarrassment, setbacks, mistakes and sometimes complete disaster. So if excuses are a shield then what’s wrong with that? Shields are good, right? Not as often as you think. If you’re shielding yourself because of the outcome of your decision was’t what you expected to be, you are are going to loose more than you realize. By doing this you are not taking responsibility for your actions. Everyone makes bad choices sometimes during life but sadly not everyone owns up to them. By not owning up to bad decisions, how would you ever learn to make the right ones? Even though a decision you made was a bad one, you’ll never realize it because you are shielding yourself from the knowledge of it.
People with shields often tend to ignore help from others when good advice comes their way, because of the embarrassment due to lack of self confidence. They say something like “I know what I’m doing”. People that think they know it all will never admit that they are students of life. We all have a lot to learn in our lives, the quicker we understand that the more capable we become. When you have no ego to protect, you will become stronger and more capable to carry loads of responsibility. Sooner or later you will become so strong that you won’t need a shield because you are strong enough to take the responsibility if your decision turns out to be a mistake.
You need to understand that mistakes must be done in order to start the learning process of growth. Be open to life. Expose yourself to different challenges and situations in order to experience setbacks and learning to take responsibility for them. You can’t control all of the events in life, but you can always control how you react to them. Sometimes life will throw a big punch at you and it will hit you bad, but feeling that you are strong enough to carry on despite that setback will make you unstoppable.
Kind regards,
Your friend Gabriel Lindstrom