Career Excuses

"Dreamers are a dime a dozen. The world is lousy with dreamers. Doers? People who actually change their lives? Those people are rare."
I had eight jobs in eight years.
I was a serial quitter, and the same thing would happen at every one.
I’d have a six-month honeymoon period at the new job. Things would be great and fun and interesting. But then I’d get a little bored. Then I’d get a little tired of the work and start to demonize the company.
“They don’t get me! They don’t appreciate my talent! I hate my boss!”
Then I’d quit and start a new job.
The funny thing is that the same problems from the last job would show up at the next one.
Eventually I had to be honest and admit something terrifying: The common denominator in every bad job I ever had was me.
I could coast through the rest of my life starting and quitting, starting and quitting. Or I could do something about it.
Not just dream about it, but actually do something. Dreamers are a dime a dozen. The world is lousy with dreamers. Doers? People who actually change their lives? Those people are rare.
Maybe you know what that feels like. Maybe you’ve felt sick to your stomach on a Sunday evening, too. My wife used to call me a “Sunday jerk” because on Saturday I was carefree and happy, but on Sunday, I could feel the weight of Monday starting to build.
The worst part is I spent 10 years making excuses. I donated a decade of my life to the wrong jobs over and over again. And you will, too, if you’re not careful.
It’s time that you and I retire our excuses for not changing our lives, starting with these five:
1. I’m Too Busy To Change My Life
You and I are busy. I admit we’ve got a lot going on in life. Being able to answer emails from the bathroom on our smartphones has made us all feel a little overwhelmed. The good news is I can give you 10 hours of free time in 10 seconds. Ready? Cut out 10 hours of TV every week. I am a genius! And I’m not telling you to become one of those pompous jerks at parties who loudly proclaim, “I don’t even own a TV.” (Those people watch YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. That counts.) The reality is that, according to a Nielsen study, the average American watches 38.5 hours of TV a week. I’m just saying cut your consumption back to a mere 28.5 hours. That’s very doable.
2. I Don’t Have Enough Money To Change My Life
Changing your life is free at first. The only resource it requires is time. Not money, but hustle. Not loans, but hard work. You don’t need to save up to change your life. You can start today, especially now that you’ve got an extra 10 hours of free time.
3. I Don't Know What To Do With My Life
A lot of people I meet hope that their life's purpose will arrive on the doorstep like a pizza. That perhaps, through some miracle, their calling will find them on their couch. Or they tell me that they have too many passions and don’t know which one to start on first. Inevitably, they are so afraid to pick the wrong passion that they don’t pick at all. The problem is that if you don’t pick any, you fail at all of them. Don’t know exactly what to do with your life? Me neither. Welcome to the human race. I guarantee, though, that if you were honest, you’d admit you have a general sense of what you want to do. No one I meet says, “I want to be either a marine biologist or a flamenco dancer in Northern Spain.” Instead, most of us have at least a fuzzy idea about what we want to do. Want to ferret it out a little? Start a blog or buy a journal and commit to writing about something that interests you once a week. In a matter of months, you’ll have a clearer picture of what you care about in your life.
4. Someday I’ll…
Someday is a great place to store your dreams. Someday you’ll write a book. Someday you’ll start a business. Someday you’ll own that llama you keep talking about. The only problem is that someday isn’t on any calendar. That day is never going to come. It’s a mythical black hole that swallows your time and your dreams and your hopes. Next time you say “someday,” take out your phone and actually pick a real time and date to hustle on your dream.
5. It’s Just A Job
Stop it. Nothing you do for 40 hours of waking time each week is just a job. That’s not just a job; that’s just your life. And don’t fool yourself into thinking you can leave it there. You can’t. If you’re going through a divorce, on Monday morning you don’t switch back into work mode and perform at 100%. If you get a horrible performance review, you don’t flip the switch back into home mode and not think about it at dinner. Tiger Woods struggled to remain dominant at golf for more than a year after it was discovered that he was cheating on his wife — he blew up his home life, and that impacted his game. If you hate your job, that eventually finds its way home.
I once met a lady in her late 70s on an airplane. She read one of my books and asked me, “What do you do when all the excuses for not chasing your dream are gone?” It was a profoundly sad moment, because for the first time, she was looking back on life — and realizing it had passed her by.
Don’t let excuses rule the day.