“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.”
~Don Wilder
I was in the gym this morning and one of the guys in there (who hadn’t been there for about two weeks) strolled in to a barrage of questions from everyone else in the weight room. In our gym we look after one another and we definitely hold everyone accountable to what they say they want to accomplish by coming there. So this particular person constantly comes in the gym speaking about how he plans on being more consistent and then he will disappear for about a week. When he comes back in he talks about all of the things that threw him off of his plan to be consistent and the mistakes that he made in his diet that made him feel too guilty to come back to the gym on a regular basis. We tell him the same thing time after time. That it doesn’t matter the mistakes he made in his own plan, or that he got off track. What matters is that he corrects the mistakes and gets it together. In one ear and out the other our words go every time.
Today, for every excuse he gave me, I simply said to him “this is the year for no excuses”. He responded by saying “but I fell off, I messed up”. I told him that it doesn’t matter that you ‘fell off’ or that you made mistakes in your own plan, what will make those mistakes matter is if you give those mistakes power by never correcting them. He asked me “well haven’t you ever made mistakes in your diet and messed up and then felt guilty about it?” and I said ‘sure I mess up in my diet because I’m an emotional eater, and I’ve missed more than one or two days at the gym but I don’t feel guilty about it because I know that I am going to correct it and eventually I do’.
Now this conversation may just be in reference to going to the gym and maintaining a healthy regimen but the message applies to everyday life as well. We all make mistakes that we feel guilty about and we sometimes think that we can’t come back from whatever mistake it is but the reality is that we can and using those mistakes then becomes more of an excuse. Not one person walking this earth is perfect or goes without making one single mistake. Sometimes what makes the mistakes worse than what they really are is the fact that we keep repeating them and never do what needs to be done to correct them.
I think that sometimes we should celebrate the fact that we are imperfect beings because it will be those imperfections that strengthen our character and our determination to do the things that we were put here to do. Those imperfections allow us to realize that while we may fall down, we most certainly have the strength to get back up. So for the year of 2012, let’s try to take the attitude that we won’t make any excuses, nor will we accept any. If we make a mistake, don’t let that very mistake be a reason that we don’t correct our actions. So you fell down, so what. Sit up, get your bearings together, dust yourself off, and get back up again. It will only stay a mistake if you don’t do anything to correct it. Until tomorrow…Rejoice in your imperfections, they are apart of what makes you who you are!
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
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Write 2 Be 
Great post!
Nice analogy. I’m a fellow MomBlogger!