Take the NO EXCUSES One-Day Challenge

Friday, October 14, 2011 by: Mike Bundrant
Tags: excuses, challenge, health news

(NaturalNews) People use excuses to justify wrongdoing or acting against their own value system. If I neglect to take out the trash after I have agreed to do so, I may make an excuse to justify the wrongdoing (this is wrongdoing according to me when I am in "non-excuse" mode). Excuses are a kind of blame that can take three forms. Let's review these and discuss how they pervasively affect our emotions, perceptions and physiology. At the end of the article I'll propose a one-day challenge that will give you one of the best days of your life.

Three kinds of excuses

1. Blame someone else. I didn't take out the trash because you asked me to do too many other things and I couldn't possibly get to it. Your expectations are totally unreasonable.

2. Blame circumstances or life I didn't take the trash out because, well, life gets in the way sometimes. It's tough. No one's life is easy and sometimes the burden is just too much!

3. Blame yourself. I didn't take out the trash, I know. It's my fault. I'm a horrible partner. I never seem to get my act together. I wouldn't blame you for being angry with me because I really suck. This one is tricky. Blaming myself is actually an indirect way of blaming someone else. When you dig a little deeper, you'll soon discover that the self-blamer is actually blaming the people who "made him that way." It usually goes back to parents. If they had been there for me, I'd be a better person.

This doesn't suggest that the parents were actually good parents or that the self-excuser is making anything up. It doesn't say anything about the parents at all. It merely means the self-excuser is indirectly blaming them for his lack of performance today. So, now I'm excusing myself for not taking out the trash by indirectly blaming my parents through blaming myself...it's a fine mess that doesn't help me deal with my parental issues at all. In fact, it gives me motivation to cling to them.

The emotional investment in excuses

People don't make excuses. They invest in them. A good excuse is a full mind-body experience. If I am blaming you, then I am seeing you a certain way, thinking certain blaming thoughts and feeling resentment, anger or some other emotion or physical tension. Were it not for the accompanying emotional investment, I wouldn't believe my own excuses. The emotions give the excuse validity. If I blame someone while giggling, it isn't very convincing. If I blame in a swell of anger, it carries more weight.

Here's the mind-blower

If I do what I believe is right, I don't need to invest in an excuse. In other words, I agreed to take out the trash. I take it out. Done. No need to blame anyone or feel any resentment, self-worth issues or engage in any depressing perceptions of life. All of that stress never even materializes because I have no need for it to justify myself.

Only when I avoid doing what I myself believe is right do I make the investment in excuses. Without the wrongdoing (according to my value system), there is no need for the stress and the mess that follows.

Which form of excuses do you tend to use?

Take the one-day no excuses challenge

Go an entire day doing everything you believe is right. Do what you honestly feel is the correct thing for yourself and others and do it immediately upon sensing it. Don't make any excuses. Find out what happens when you don't need the emotional investment in all kinds of stressful states just to justify the betrayal of your own values.

After you've done this for a day, leave a comment and let us know what happened. If you want to dig a little deeper into these issues, check out our free mini course below.

About the author:
Watch the free video The AHA! Process: An End to Self-Sabotage and discover the lost keys to personal transformation and emotional well-being that have been suppressed by mainstream mental health for decades.

The information in this video has been called the missing link in mental health and personal development. In a world full of shallow, quick-fix techniques, second rate psychology and pharmaceutical takeovers, real solutions have become nearly impossible to find. Click here to watch the presentation that will turn your world upside down.

Mike Bundrant is co-founder of the iNLP Center and host of Mental Health Exposed, a Natural News Radio program.

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