Shattering the 3 most-common excuses for not checking off items on your ‘BIG Life List’
My last post was about creating your BIG Life List.
Perhaps a little voice inside your head might be whispering (or shouting) about all the reasons you can’t do this kind of fun stuff your life. Fact is, it’s these excuses that will sap the spirit and energy out of your life. It’s too easy for all of us to simply believe we’ll ‘get around to it’ or ‘someday’ we’ll have more fun but one excuse or another comes up. Try these on for size…
- I don’t have time to do this stuff
When I hear people say I don’t have time for something really means that item is not a priority for them. Quite simply, the excuse of “I don’t have time” is commonly accepted but if you stop and think about it we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It’s up to you to decide what is a priority. And if a priority is living a full, rich life with incredible experiences and adventures – then you’ll create the time and schedule items from you BIG Life List.
Think about where you might be spending time now and make the conscious decision if that’s what you want to do or would you rather be doing something from your big list. Or what are you doing now that you could pay someone else to do? I don’t cut my own lawn, clean my house, wash my car, drop-off my dry cleaning, buy stamps or a dozen other simple activities. Why? Because I know I can easily pay someone to do this and it frees me up to either create additional revenue streams or enjoy my life.
- I can’t leave my business long enough to do this
A close cousin to ‘not having enough time’ is believing you can’t get away from your business long enough to knock off any of the fun items on your list. You can get a lot done in just a few days and your company will not fall apart with you. If you cannot leave your office for a few days without things getting off-track you have some serious system issues that need to be worked on. (Leaving will actually expose them to you.) Most times if people are left to fend for themselves without the “big boss” approving everything – most things will still get done correctly. Maybe not quite the way you would do it but the end result would be close enough and you’d have the freedom to enjoy your life.
In fact, I think freedom is the operative keyword for entrepreneurs and unless we exercise that freedom by stepping away from the office it slowly collapses. And we become nothing more than highly-paid servants to our businesses.
You might believe you’re indispensable but nearly everyone (including you) is replaceable. It’s important to step back and see if you are truly operating on activities in your business that are core competencies and unique abilities where you excel.
You’ve probably heard of the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule. It states that approximately 20% of your activities produce 80% of the results. Conversely 80% of your activities create 20% of the results. So if you focus on the critical few activities that produce 80% of the results – this will free up your time to do even more outside of work.
- My <friends/family/dog> will think I’m crazy
So what? Maybe they will – but who cares? My wife and her family think I’m pretty nuts – but I don’t mind. I realized I’m wired differently and that’s ok. Typically, my wife, Missy, won’t come with on my adventures and that’s fine because she has a different idea of vacations than I do. We do things apart and we do things together.
Now on the other hand my step-mother is a huge worrier and doesn’t want to know when I go jump out of airplanes or when I go Baja racing. She’s ok if I tell her after the fact – when I’m home safe and sound. And that’s fine too.
The only thing that’s not fine are the people who attempt to reel you in because they know better or think they’re helping. They might say, “Don’t you care about your family?” or “Aren’t you getting too old for this kind of thing?” or my favorite, “You can’t always get what you want.”
These negative people are simply replaying the tapes spinning in their heads. They can keep their boring and dull existence – I’d rather create the kind of memories that last forever and give me something more interesting to talk about then the local football team or the weather.
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May 6th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hi Yanik;
Another great post and the timing actually couldn’t be better.
I do my annual personal review on my birthday in June, as opposed to at the start of the calendar year, and I am currently reviewing my big list to see what items need to be moved into priority.
This past year I found myself making more and more excuses NOT to do the things on my list (for a wide variety of reasons) so thank you for your timely reminder that if I don’t make these items a priority, no one else is going to do it for me.
Yanik – I also tried to get a message to you directly, with a video voice mail through a mutual friend, but not sure if you rec’d it. I was hoping to have you speak on my virtual platform this summer as part of http://www.MillionairePrepSchool.com.
If you’re interested, please have someone on your team contact me at paul [at] millionaireprepschool [dot] com.
– Paul
http://www.MillionairePrepSchool.com
May 6th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
thank you so much Yanik. I guess I better get on my list of things to do
before I “croak”. My buddy who’s a blues guitarist needs a Bass Player
and I think I better jump on it.
I have a myriad of other to do things I better get on.
Mark in Canada
May 6th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Hey Yanik, great post. It resonates with me and my mission to help online entrepreneurs travel the world longterm. (If that is one of the items on their Big Life List, anyway!)
Jason and I have loved every day of our stay here in Buenos Aires and couldn’t be happier that we embarked on our traveling lifestyle. Thank goodness we didn’t let all of our fears and the judgments of others get in our way!
You mentioned pursuing your Big Life List in relation to family, wife and kids. I think it’s awesome that you and Missy have worked out your “crazy adventures” so well, but I know so many people who say, “I would do what you are doing, but it makes it too hard when you have kids!”
I think it’s a shame that a parent’s dream of a jet set lifestyle and a child’s opportunity to gain so much enriching experience would be lost because a person limits their thinking!
So I started a section of my website to help traveling entrepreneurs with kids! I particularly decided to do this when you mentioned to me at the Underground seminar this year that you would love to see a site about that.
I realized that many other people had expressed the same wish as you had. I also realized that it was a wish I had for myself to continue my travels once my future kids are born. Thanks for a nudge in the right direction! People are showing real interest in this on my blog!
May 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Loved your thoughts. I’ve always told my own family, friends and readers to find time for the important things. My dad died at 53. Heaven is wonderful, but I still think about the lakes he didn’t fish, the trips he didn’t take, the restaurants he didn’t sample.
Life comes with no guarantees. We’ve always encouraged our daughter to grab every chance to do something new. She studied in Spain and Costa Rica as part of her college courses. Built her own marketing business. Now she’s in Chicago on a new career.
Ed and I take every opportunity to travel and do the things we love to do. Now I plan to renew my own list (again) with new goals. Thanks for the reminder!
May 14th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Hey Yanik,
Great post as usual.
You’re absolutely right about the thoughts that people have. There’s a saying I heard years ago that has really impacted the way I treat my business and my time. And that is, “Don’t design your life around your business, but design your business around your life”
The funny thing, is that the business that I was in at the time I heard this didn’t allow me to do that. But it made me think long and hard about why am I even in this type of business.
I want to go and play golf or tennis in the morning, after taking my daughter to school.
I also want to be able to spend time with her in the afternoon, and be able to attend all of her activities.
Most people say, I can’t do all of that because of my business, time, etc…
I say, change your business, to do what you want to do.
It didn’t change for me immediately, after I heard that phrase, but it planted a seed in my mind. And later when I made the decision that I was GOING to do the things I WANT TO DO, that decision led me a series of “coincidences” that now I can do all these things, while making more money than ever before.
Now I want to raise the bar and do even more things that are on my list of goals and dreams. (Like travel the world, like Melanie and Jason Van Orden)
Cheers,
Vitaly
June 7th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
You are so right Yanik.We spend so much time making excuses that we never live our life 1/1000th to it’s fullest. I will do better!
~Lisa
October 5th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Hi there Yanik,
Great post!
I’m sure everyone has “to do list”. Sometimes things don’t happen as we want it. My personal “to do” list is getting larger than last year. A lot of goals for the next year too. What about you?
Keep in touch!
Yours,
Elitsa
June 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Good advice Yanik. Now that I’m writing my Big List I’ll post this next to it to keep me going!
January 1st, 2010 at 1:09 pm
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