What Stops You From Being Where You Want to Be?

The last thing I ever want to ‘advertise’ about myself is that I’m willing to sugarcoat or censor my opinions simply to succumb to the politically correct or what have you. I came across a post that was authored by Robb Sutton recently that struck a chord with me and although I like to think that I can get my thoughts out fairly well by writing, he nailed it on the head and created a Zero-Tolerance Policy that we really all should create for ourselves. Not only to keep our own ideas and goals in line with where we want to be, but also to even push others, whether it’s hard for them to hear it or not, to get moving and take responsibility.

Making excuses, somehow became what seems to be a necessary requirement for us when it comes to dealing with those challenges that we either couldn’t negotiate, or something we end up getting frustrated over and ultimately makes us quit and place an excuse on something other than ourselves. Sure, there are many obstacles that can definitely occur that will take us out of commission for awhile, but at the end of the day, if we simply throw our hands up in disgust and blame the family dog, or whatever you like to use…it only seems easier to push away all blame from ourselves and say, “The dog ate my homework….”

In my position within the Information Technology field, I’ve seen and heard many stories where the next big project or opportunity that would make or break a company is placed on the table. The ideas are thrown out, research is performed and even demonstrations on how certain products can be used within the subject matter of the company to practically guarantee success. However, once the project is placed into implementation mode, not everything falls into place as the major sponsors would have liked, and frustration kicks in. These frustrations can snowball and once word gets out that the project is deemed either a failure, or…worse yet, kept into production with too many band-aids, fingers start to point and blame starts being pushed around.

This creates an unnecessary attribute of animosity not only among departments, but also team members. “If John had only done it this way…” or, “Well nobody told me that it had to be done this way…” then where does the accountability lie? Sure, leaders are supposed to be the ones taking the fall for such failures, but it is still human nature to come out shinier than the next guy and guard our reputations from exposing fault. We then start to look weak and unreliable when others can point and laugh knowing that there is someone that will take the fall, even if the rest of the world failed just as hard.

In the blogging world, it’s all too easy to make up excuses about why our blogs aren’t making as much money as the next guy. Unfortunately, when it comes to blogging, everybody seems to want to be the expert so the market on “Blogging About Blogging” is over saturated. I’ve read my share of all kinds of blogs and have seen many crumble even though there are TONS of resources and tools out there that were developed to help the small guys take a step up. Ebooks, courses and free articles are all over the Internet on HOW to do it…and although I’ve read maybe 0.01% of them, they all say the same thing at the end, there is NO magic formula…just hard work, accountability and perseverance.

More importantly, there are no excuses made by the successful.

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