Top 10 Excuses For Not Being Great
from www.MichaelAngeloCaruso.com

Everyone has the ability to be great.  In fact, greatness is probably the most natural of all achievements.  So why don’t more of us achieve greatness?  One reason is that we get in our own way.  Another reason is that we often don’t receive the right amount of encouragement.

By the way, there are varying degrees of greatness.  You may never win an Oscar, for example, but you may get to hold one. 

Here are the top ten excuses for not being great, along with some quick  advice on how you can achieve greatness.

Top 10 excuses for not being great

1. You don’t know how.

Huh? You’re kidding, right? You don’t know how to do something? I have one word for you: Google.

Need a book? Your public library has thousands and you won’t have to wait in line because nobody goes there.

Need tutelage? Hire a coach.

Information is more accessible now than any other point in history and most of it is free. Get good at accessing what you need to know. It’s your ticket to greatness.

2. You don’t know the right people.

As with information, people are more accessible than ever before. Nearly anyone you need to know can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or YouTube.

Make yourself a little more available and you’re half way there.

The average person actually stops trying to be likable as he or she gets older. Most people on Facebook sign up about 145 friends and stop. Become a bit more psychologically attractive and you will connect with the right people.

3. You don’t have the money.

This is a math problem everyone can solve. There are two major ways that you can have more money.

The first way is to reduce expenses and save the extra money for whatever you’d like or need. Create a strict budget, and set aside a portion of your income. This may include sacrificing, a lost art among a society that strongly identifies with comfort.

The second way to have more money is to earn more. See “comfort” above. You can earn more by getting a better paying job, also known as “leaving your comfort zone.” Earning more often means working harder or at least applying yourself.

Would you like to double the amount of money you earn now? Get a second job! If you really want the money, you’ll do it.

One of the easiest ways to earn money is to proffer your intellectual property. You can do this by creating a short e-book that offers information on how to do something. You’re probably really good at something, right?

Tell others how to do it in a Word document, save the document to a .pdf that you can sell online and off. Sell ten e-books at $10 each and you’ll have an extra $100.

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live or what the economical climate is like. Money is all around you. Go get it.

4. Someone else is already doing it.

Which came first, Copyblogger or Problogger? Groupon or Living Social? Dyson or Hoover? Yahoo or Hotmail?

You don’t know? Very few will people will care if you’re not first to market as long as your offering has a unique and worthwhile value.

A guy named Elisha Gray filed for a patent on a new invention called the telephone three hours after Alexander Graham Bell.

Count on it. Someone, somewhere is already doing what you’re doing. Work around them.

5. You’ll get to it later.

Maybe you’ll be great later. But history teaches us that life introduces all sorts of distractions in the game of life.

Face it, you’re only going to get busier.

Now is the time to put “greatness” on your calendar. Schedule it, then accomplish it. It’s called “greatness” partly because it’ll make you feel great!

6. You’re not ready for that level of success.

Success is a head game of sorts.

You’re trying to achieve something new, so how do you ever really know if you’re ready? What does “ready” even mean?

Stop making excuses and realize you’ll like life better when you’re in a better place.

Oh, you’re ready, trust me. And if greatness occurs and you’re not ready, you’ll get ready in a hurry.

7. There are too many obstacles.

This is true, but it’s not a good excuse for dodging greatness.

Heroes do things that others are unwilling or unable to do.

To find the treasure, you must be born into misfortune, get beat up by bad guys, be betrayed by your best friend, find love and lose it, and have a really bad accident.

And then, after you’re totally exhausted, you get to slay a dragon.

Hey, if being a hero was easy, everyone would do it.

8. You don’t have a (good) website.

A killer website is always useful for success and greatness. But if you don’t have one, you have options. If your current crappy website needs a redesign, hire someone to redesign it.

Meanwhile, you can promote, brand, and even sell from a free blog site. Post on other people’s blogs, but never promote yourself without permission. There are clever ways to sell on social media platforms.

Many people make money from affiliate marketing, which allows revenue to flow to you after you recommend products and services to your distribution list.

Website, schmebsite.

9. You’re too tired.

Being tired all the time is not normal.

Good health is important and certainly makes it easier to be great. Sufficient rest is part of good health. Go to bed earlier, if necessary, but establish a working rhythm that feels like success.

10. You’re just not confident enough.

There are two ways a human being comes into intelligence: genetic predisposition and learned behavior. Confidence is a learned behavior.

Listen to self-help programs and motivational messages. These total strangers will say things to you that your loved ones will not. It sounds implausible, but if you listen often enough to the right people, you will begin to believe there is greatness in you. And you know what? There is!