There are always plenty of excuses to hide behind in life – I know because I've used excuses myself. I'm sure that if I asked you what has held you back in life you would be able to give me a long list of reasons. These reasons may be good ones and I'm sure you will have a lot of sad stories to tell; but perhaps the biggest reason we don't succeed is because we allow excuses to stop us from acting. Unless you can get realistic and face your life head on you will not get anywhere.

Realistic about who you are
You first need to learn to appreciate and love who you are. It is a waste of effort to wish you were someone else; or that somehow if you had only been born into a different family you would be a great success. You can waste a lot of energy and time wishing things were different but they are not. You are who you are, you cannot be anyone else.

Realistic about your talents
Have you ever watched a T.V. Talent show? I am always surprised to see that so many of those who audition believe they have a talent when they obviously haven't; some have talent but many don't. I am convinced that there are ways of learning many of the things that we take as being simply 'gifts from above', but you will get nowhere if you delude yourself. You do have talents but you may not like the ones that you have, but you can only work with what you have.

To develop another talent you have to start with what you already have. Talents aren't things you can go out and buy off the shelf you have to use what you have and develop them.

Realistic about time
Time is a great asset and I wish more people would make friends with it instead of seeing it as the enemy. Time is a resource that helps us get things done. But it's very easy to get unrealistic about how much time we have. I've seen too many people burn themselves out trying to do something when they could probably have achieved it if they had allowed themselves a little longer.

Time is a finite resource, it is what it is – we can't make or buy any more of it. This means that we can't just keep pushing more and more into our life and expect it all to fit.

I get tired in the evenings and become pretty useless at trying to do anything that requires a great deal of thinking. I would love to be like those who can stay up into the small hours working at something but I just can't do it. However, I'm very productive during the day. I guess this makes me a morning person. If I try to use time that is not really available to me (e.g. late evening) I really suffer for it the following day. If I want to achieve something I have to work with the hours I have available.

Now you may find that you are pretty busy and have little time for anything and yet have a dream to achieve something. Then to achieve it you have to find some time (don't have the space to cover that here but it is possible). If you only have a little time then work with what you have but don't try to overreach yourself because if you do then you will fail. On the other hand don't under use your time and hope that somehow things will happen because they won't.

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