Episode 312: The Hazard of Making Excuses

Book a Free Consultation with Peter Today I'm going to talk to you about the hazard of making excuses as an actor.  And I'm going to start with perhaps something that if you were like me, or you are like how I used to be the idea of it's only me.  So it's only me and therefore it doesn't count or, I'm tough, I can handle it.  One of the things that making excuses as an actor does is it stalls personal growth. And anything that would affect me in a negative way, I used to be like, "Hey, I'm young. I can take it. Hey, no worries. I can overcome it."  Until I couldn't.  And so the first thing I'm going to talk about in terms of the hazards of making excuses as an actor is just that. Stalling personal growth.  See, now, as a middle aged woman, I don't want to do anything that stalls me. I don't want to have any energy that is moving against me.  I want everything moving for me.  Because you know what? I deserve it.  And so do you and this making excuses and stalling my personal growth, what it does is it prevents me from taking responsibility and it also limits opportunities for self improvement and for learning from my mistakes. I've talked about how when we make mistakes, those can be our great learning opportunities. The thing is that when I prevent myself from taking responsibility, what happens is that I'm saying I am not part of the problem.  And if I am not part of the problem, there is no solution. I also have to say that when I stall my personal growth, I limit opportunities, because what I do is I'm so closed off in my thinking, and when I'm so closed off in my thinking, I don't know what to do.  I'm only seeing that little bit.  It's like I'm putting blinders on the side of my face.  I can't see anything except what is in front of me. And I want to be seeing everything.  I want to be looking at my life and moving things to work for me and the creating the potential for a better result. I want all of it. Not just some of it.  It's like when I talk about the two power systems, I have the ego power system, and I have the universal power system. When I am in my ego power system, I have only finite energy.  Energy that begins and ends with me.  When I am in the universe power system, oh my gosh, it's infinite and what I want to do as a finite human is I want to hook up a a pipeline to the universe to that infinite energy. The other thing is that making excuses does is it damages credibility.  It doesn't only damage credibility with other people, my credibility with others, but it also damages credibility with me. One of the biggest things that I have learned in the pandemic and post pandemic is learning trust.  And that trust within myself is when I say I'm going to do something, actually doing it.  Like today I said, I'm going to record two podcasts today. So today I'm going to record two podcasts. Now would it be a big deal if I only recorded one? No.  But the person who I most need to be building that trust with, she would know. And that is myself.  That getting trust from yourself is in some ways the hardest person to get it from because it's also the easiest per person to skimp it from.  So really, wanting to build credibility with me and not making excuses, even to myself, is so important.  Because if I don't do it, I erode trust.  I erode my own reliability with myself.  And I make others and myself doubt my commitment and my own integrity, building my own integrity with me. It is of paramount importance.  The other thing that making excuses does, when I talk about, working for you and getting everything to work for you instead of against you, is that making excuses creates a negative mindset.  It creates a negative mindset.  Again, I want to have an anabolic mindset, which is filled with anabolic energy that works for me, that that is growing, is healing energy. When I am in a negative mindset, I want to I am in catabolic energy, and that is, I just described it to my weekly class I describe that as being like having a really bad virus.  It feels like your body or something in you is working so hard against you and just making you feel so weak.  Also, when I make excuses and I create a negative mindset, I rely on those excuses to create something that I don't want to create, which is a defeatist attitude. And that making excuses that create, that creates a negative mindset also it reinforces my own limitations and my own limiting beliefs in myself when instead I could be using it as an opportunity to do the thing that I want to make an excuse about to build trust in myself, build the ability to seek solution, and also build the self esteem that comes with it.   And I always talk about how building self esteem, building confidence, what does it do? It improves belief in the self and self esteem.  The other thing that making excuses does is it enables you to miss opportunities, and those excuses, what they do is that they feed into that dirty P word of procrastination. They also feed into that other dirty word of perfectionism.  Perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.  And what ends up happening when I make an excuse and I have a missed opportunity is that causes inaction.  And it causes me to miss chances for success, or a learning, or an education, or an advancement. Finally, the thing that making excuses does is it also hinders problem solving.  And it makes me think that I'm not that smart. Ouch.  And when I blame some external factor, like the person I read with in that audition, or the fact that the casting director just doesn't get me, instead of addressing the issues directly, and those issues are, if I'm not part of the problem, there is no solution. What it does is, again, it erodes my ability to overcome challenges.  When I come to that fork in the road, do I make an excuse or do I find a way?  Finding a way, that increases my ability to solve problems, that increases my ability to let go of wanting to make an excuse and take the "easy way out" and go what may initially look like the harder way, but actually in the long run. The easy way, because when I don't make excuses, and I take responsibility for my life, and I acknowledge that if I am not part of the problem, there is no solution.  I find ways of finding a way. I build self esteem. I build trust in myself. I build self confidence.  And also, just as a bonus, I diminish, I neutralize, I minimize any anxiety or self doubt I may have. So today, let's find a way. Let's build self esteem. Let's believe in ourselves, just even for a moment.