Be Your Own Best Friend
If you feel like you’ve failed, don’t worry. That’s the process. Failure is normal for all growth. These quotes on no excuses and thoughts should help bolster your resolve to do the thing… the next important thing you need to do, and then the next.
If you’re not yet where you want to be, that’s okay. If you’re working on your goals, then you’re probably closer today than you were yesterday or last week. But if not, keep on going and growing. No excuses… no failure… just learning and growth, testing and tweaking.
Action is the enemy of excuses.
“Excuses bypass opportunities for growth.”
SOURCE: The Book of Love and Creation, a channeled text by Paul Selig
~Paul Selig, clairaudient author, b.10/24/1961
Audio Article – No Excuses:
Never give up on yourself and your dreams. You wouldn’t do that to a friend.
You would never let a friend down.
You encourage your friends.
You praise your friends.
You love your friends.
Time to ‘friend’ yourself.
– LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com
Setting Goals
You’re only one day, one effort away from being closer to your goal.
If you’re working in a goals journal or goals list (you can just use a Word or Google Doc), even if you’ve had to revise your original goal—perhaps even more than once—you’re still ahead. Most people never even set goals, let alone in writing. Or they set goals but then don’t take action.
Most people dream without every anchoring those dreams in the reality of daily effort. Your dreams won’t happen without you.
~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com
Take Action Daily
Setting goals, then taking daily action towards your goals, serves to help you refine what your goals are to be versus what you might first think it is. This process of steady refinement and tweaking is super important for progress; in fact it is the nature of all progress. But more than that…
Daily action toward your goals is the only way to arrive.
Saying your goals out loud sketches them in the ether of existence.
Writing your goals, inks in the blueprint of your dreams.
Daily action builds them into being and makes them real.
Persistence over time, completes them… and you!
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Making progress each day is the name of the game. You don’t have to have it all figured out beforehand. In fact it’s best that you don’t even try because it’s in the journey that the way becomes more clear.
It’s in the journey that the way becomes more clear.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
~Rumi, a 13th-century Persian Sunni Muslim poet, and Sufi mystic
No Perfect Plan
Don’t wait. There’s no such thing as a perfect plan.
Set your macro goal, then break down the daily, weekly and monthly goals and actions to achieving it. Better to reassess each day and each week, and start over if necessary, than to wait for the perfect plan.
The perfect plan doesn’t exist. Entrepreneurship is messy. Journeys are messy… they’re rarely a straight and clear path… you have to plow through the brambles and make your own. But each time you get off track you get better at getting back on, and you learn more about the nature of the track you need to be on.
The more you learn what doesn’t work, the more you’ll come to know what does.
The creative process is a journey of discovery, not a journey of perfection.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
No Excuses
A majority of creatives have identified accountability as their number one need when it comes to achieving their goals. And yet, in our experience over the years, very few actually follow through in accountability groups.
We all understand the reality of struggles. But the most successful in life do not employ excuses for not getting things done. Success is recognizing that struggles are a part of the journey and clambering hurdles makes us stronger.
The habit of excuses becomes a way of life. So does the habit of success.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
There will always be people and places to go to for complaining and excusing why you didn’t do this or that. Similarly, there will always be distractions and catastrophes and mass hysteria at the next horrible thing on the news.
Distractions rarely add value to your life. Rather, they rob your time, your energy and your optimism.
Headlines and sideshows are not the places where winners hang out.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Beware Saboteurs
We can always find an empathetic friend, or a group of friends who “understand” and sympathize with our troubles. Fewer are the friends who hold you accountable and do not heed your excuses. Seek out the “no excuses” friends and you will get more done.
Excuses are a despot of diminishing returns.
Remember this famous quote:
“You become the average of the five people you spend the most time around.”
– Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker, 1930-2009
Your success and determination to grow and improve can be a threat to your friends and family. Don’t let them hold you back. The people in your life often undermine and sabotage your progress. It’s unconscious. It’s not intentional malice. It’s just that life will be easier on them if you don’t excel.
Your excellence calls them to step up their game and threatens their comfort zones.
It’s a sticky wicket that can keep you stuck with less than you can be. But this is your journey and your happiness depends on it. Hopefully, you will inspire them to do and be more too. But this is why it’s vital to your progress to associate with those who put in the perspiration to propel their aspirations further.
Success demands that you persevere no matter what, and especially when the going gets tough.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Excuses Plague Progress
Ultimately, the one who will suffer most from excuses, is the one making them. Each excuse is another layer of shadow covering up our dreams… covering up the light of hope for a more amazing future.
Inevitably, you feel better, stronger and more confident when you’ve pushed yourself to do more than you thought you could. There are always reasons for not making progress. Just don’t let them become your excuses. Instead…
Let the obstacles in your way become your jungle gym to success.
Excuses do not satisfy the soul.
Excuses do not get the work done.
Excuses keep you from yourSELF.
~LeAura Alderson, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Accountability
For some, just the act and process of daily journaling is all the accountability they need. For others, joining a kindred group becomes an accountability partner: a public declaration of commitment that creates the structure. For still others, it might be something more, such as an accountability partner. Whatever is it for you, seek it out without delay, then begin daily, methodically, to work through your goals.
Excuse Alley is a dead end street. Steer away from it.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Whatever you do… avoid making excuses. Excuses will never serve you.
Excuses are a despot of diminishing returns.
Perfectionism can be an excuse to avoid doing the work and putting it out there. But that’s not you, right?
~LeAura Alderson, writer, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
You may enjoy this No Excuses Journal for Artists.
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Hello! I’m LeAura, owner and co-creator of iCreateDaily.com®. As an autodidactic philosopher, generalist, personal development advocate, entrepreneur, writer, editor, author, ideator, media publisher, and podcaster, I’m passionate about helping others achieve their best possible life! Our small family of entrepreneurs, writers, investors, educators and creators own and run websites around topics we enjoy, such as gardening, health and fitness, creativity and pets, with more to come.
While my greatest teacher is Life… my formal training includes certifications in mediation, fitness, and strategic intervention coaching, including marriage and family. Today, the synergy of creating websites, articles and podcasts, brings together all my favorite things: family, learning, growth, creating, connecting and contributing. To share these with you is a privilege, that serves my lifelong aspiration to help others.
My personal areas of creativity are in writing, masterminding, ideation, synthesis and bringing ideas to life through business and entrepreneurship, all with a pervasive spiritual foundation with a focus on elevating the lives of others.
Want to submit your photos, videos and/or article content for publication? We love to consider your contribution for publication! creators@icreatedaily.com