In my role as a counselor, teacher, and parent, I’ve heard many reasons that people use to explain an unhappy existence . . . and almost all of them inevitably fall into one huge category, which I call “excuses.”

The rest of the chapter will introduce you to 18 of the most commonly used ones, along with a brief commentary about each of them. This will give you a primer before you go on to learn the Excuses Begone! method that’s detailed in the rest of the book.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Anyone interested in getting better results, becoming more productive and ultimately more successful should probably take an honest look at the problem of procrastination.  Most people think procrastination is just an issue that involves putting things off that can be done later without much of a penalty.

That idea just scratches the surface of the procrastination issue and  is indicative of the denial people have about it.  Truthfully, procrastination is like an addiction because it is the symptom of a thinking problem and like any other addiction, its difficult to break!

The reality is this: Nothing marginalizes results more than procrastination because being productive and getting superior results is about completing tasks and projects in reduced time frames.

Resilient models of thinking may not have prevented today’s economic disasters, but I can’t help but wonder if the Big Three automakers would  be solvent today if they had implemented  new models of thinking.

- Do you know how you think?
- Do you know what you do when you have to think something through?

Try this exercise:
Take a few minutes  to write what you are thinking. When you are done, take a look at what you have written. Keep the following questions in mind:

- Is your thinking organized? Methodical?
- Do you use a charting or mapping process to keep track of the flow of your ideas?
- How do you know where one stage or type of thinking ends and another one begins?

Step 2 – Change Your Perception and the Experience Changes

You can easily change your perception when you recognize the fact that you made it up in the first instance based on your beliefs and past experiences. In a relaxed state with your eyes closed, create a mental image in your mind of a negative experience you wish to neutralize.

Neutrally observe yourself experiencing the specific event, how it started, how you felt, where it took place, why it was negative for you and how you reacted. As you continue to neutrally observe the scene unfolding through to its end, see how your beliefs about life and yourself made you perceive the experience as negative.