How to Stop Making Excuses: it was never the weather

Not long ago I gave the members of my club the easiest assignment on our entire roadmap: go to a car dealership and test-drive your dream car. Don't buy anything, just get behind the wheel. A week later, on our group call, I asked who had done it, and almost everyone told me why it didn't work out: there's no dealership for that brand in my city, I'd have to drive to another town, the salesperson asked what the purpose of my visit was, well, at least I tried.

How to stop making excuses: don't argue with each one, check what's behind it. An excuse is "I don't want to pay the price" dressed up as "I can't." The test is simple: if the same circumstance stood between you and helping someone you love, and it wouldn't stop you, you're looking at an excuse. Then name what you're doing it for, with a number and a date, decide in advance what you'll do when the "official reason" shows up, take the first step that same day, and report on facts.

I know this mechanism from the inside. At eighteen I started out cold calling, and I'd hang up after three rings. Today I have 20 years in business behind me and more than 2,000 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, and I hear excuses every week, my own included.

Why do I always make excuses? The note we write for ourselves

I'd dial a number, wait three rings, nobody picked up, and I'd put the phone down thinking, "Well, nobody's there." And right away I felt relief, because now I had an official reason for not calling: nobody answers. It's unpleasant, it's scary, I'll call back later. That's what you do while you're learning and while you're weaker, but it doesn't get you results.

Every excuse brings relief right now, and that relief is real, you can feel it in your body. The price comes later, and you can't see it. On that call I told the members: every one of you carries a note around explaining why things aren't working out. No time, didn't think it mattered, was busy, can't, circumstances. It doesn't matter what the note says. It just explains why there's no result and why that's not on you.

Psychologists have a term for this: self-handicapping. In everyday language people call it self-sabotage. You put an obstacle in your own way ahead of time: you procrastinate, you underprepare, you find distractions, so that if you fail, you can blame the obstacle instead of yourself. Didn't make the call, so you didn't hear a no. Didn't start, so you didn't fail.

In 2021 a team of German psychologists led by Malte Schwinger pulled together 159 studies with a combined sample of 81,630 people, all of them school and college students, and looked at what's most strongly linked to the habit of getting in your own way. Among the strongest factors were fear of failure (a correlation of 0.39), low self-esteem, and low conscientiousness. There's no review like that for adult entrepreneurs, but in my one-on-one sessions I see the same picture: most of the time an excuse protects your self-esteem. You can't explain it with laziness alone, and not with stupidity either. Many of the people who skipped the dealership have read more books than most people around them. Where they lose is the little story they tell themselves about why a simple task can't be done.

Excuses vs reasons: the rain test

The idea behind this test isn't mine. I came across it in a video, but I agree with it one hundred percent. Say you're planning an evening run, and it starts raining. You stay home, no run today. But you also need groceries, and in that same rain you throw on a jacket and go, because you have to eat. And if someone you love calls and says they need help right now, you'll get dressed and walk through a thunderstorm or a blizzard.

Same circumstance, different decisions. So what decides is your intention, your answer to "what is this for," and circumstances only show how much it matters to you.

It's important not to overdo this. The rain test doesn't turn every choice into an excuse. Staying home in the rain is fine if you honestly tell yourself, "I'm not running today, I don't want to." That's your decision, and its price is clear. An excuse starts where you want the result, you say "I can't," and in reality you're not willing to pay for it with discomfort.

	Reason	Excuse	Honest "no"
What you tell yourself	"I can't"	"I can't"	"I don't want to, it's not for me"
For someone you love	still couldn't	could	doesn't matter
Do you want the result?	yes	yes	no
Example	high fever, hospital	"no dealership in my city"	"I don't need that car"
What to do	recover, reschedule	the steps below	cross the goal off

A friend once told me something that fits here perfectly: no sneakers to start running? Run in your dress shoes. Instead we order sneakers on AliExpress, wait three weeks, and say we can't start yet, can't exactly run in flip-flops. Yes, in flip-flops. And in the rain.

Is "not having time" an excuse?

Almost always, yes. Back in 2019 I wrote on my channel that this phrase should be dropped from your vocabulary: we spend our time somewhere, which means we choose what to spend it on. That day we were leaving for the airport at eleven in the morning, and I had exactly one free hour. I broke away to have breakfast with my daughter overlooking the sea, because that mattered to me. The time showed up once the "what for" showed up. There are real exceptions: illness, caring for a loved one, a crunch you genuinely can't avoid. In those periods your time really is fully taken, and the rain test will show that. In every other case "I don't have time" means "right now this isn't more important to me than everything else," and it helps to at least say that to yourself plainly.

In 2014 I was training in the mornings, and I wrote that the hardest part wasn't the running or the pull-ups, it was getting up. Lying in bed, I can always come up with ten reasons why today is better for resting. So lying in bed, I look for one reason why I need this, and I get up. Ten excuses lose to one clear "why," if you've actually put it into words.

I picked the test-drive assignment precisely because it has almost no outside factors. Sales is harder, a client can say no. Here you just have to get yourself together and set aside time for yourself. The task is simple in terms of actions, but it doesn't feel simple at all, and that's the point: it shows you exactly what stops you. The tasks that actually change your life, once you're dealing with sales, marketing, positioning, and hiring, are many times harder in terms of actions.

Why excuses win when the dream only lives in your head

When I was figuring out why nobody did the test drive, one thing surprised me: people say for years that they want a car, an apartment, a trip to the Maldives, and they've never once seen it in person and don't know what it costs. The dream exists as a picture that's nice to look at, and that picture on its own drains your energy.

Psychologists Heather Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen ran four experiments where they asked people to fantasize positively about a desired future and then measured their energy, both physiologically and through behavior. After positive fantasies people had less energy than after doubts, negative fantasies, and even neutral ones, and it dropped the most when the dream touched their most pressing need. The authors' conclusion: positive fantasies don't give you the energy to move toward what you want (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2011).

Oettingen didn't stop there and came up with what to do instead of fantasizing. The method is called mental contrasting, and its popular version is WOOP: the wish, the best outcome, the main obstacle inside you, and an "if…, then…" plan. First you picture the dream, right after it what's in the way, and you decide what you'll do when the obstacle shows up. In a 2021 meta-analysis of 21 studies and 15,907 participants, mental contrasting with plans like these had a small but consistent effect on reaching goals (g = 0.34), and the authors honestly note that the real effect may be smaller.

In practice I add one thing to this: you have to touch the dream. Hold the iPhone in your hands, try on a suit in an expensive boutique, sit down with a website and figure out what the trip costs. That's when things get concrete: "the trip costs this much, I need to earn this much, I can do it." Find people who've been there and ask if they liked it. Every deal in life starts with a viewing. How are you going to buy something you've never even seen? Maybe you won't like it at all.

That's exactly how I bought my first truly expensive suit, for $2,500. The money was more or less there, but I never walked into stores like that, even though I knew the rule: if you want to move up, you at least need to be in contact with that level. My wife and I were walking past, and she said, "Let's go in and just look." And I'm in shorts with a backpack. They pour us champagne, sit us in a comfortable armchair, and around us is a huge room just for trying on suits. I come out wearing it, and the first thing my wife says is: "I want you in that." We take it. The card was close to the limit, but afterward I wore that suit on every stage and was proud I could afford something like that. Allowing myself that purchase was a separate decision, and it started with us just walking in to look.

We measure strong people by their results, not by the dreams they admire in private. A test drive turns fantasy into contact with reality: afterward you either know what you're working for, or you honestly realize it's not for you. Both answers beat a picture.

How to start taking action when you're scared

Behind a lot of excuses there's plain fear. One member was scared even to walk into a dealership: since childhood she'd been afraid of expensive stores, where the salespeople look you over, the money won't be enough, and you have nothing decent to wear. That's normal, and people really will look at you, whatever your income. One club member with a serious business told us she'd tried several times to buy a car with cash, and the salespeople talked her out of it with how they acted, because to them she looked like any ordinary girl from the neighborhood. The worst that can happen: they tell you, "Run along, sweetheart," and you leave with your head down. But you might get a different salesperson who says, "Let me show you, sit inside, try it."

You can't be ready. You can feel confidence, you can feel hope, but readiness isn't a feeling. It's a decision: "I'm doing this." I wrote more about waiting to feel ready in the piece on why you're not really waiting for motivation. A brave person is someone who's scared and gets up and does it anyway. Someone who isn't scared is just fearless.

There are two ways to shrink the fear. I picked up the first one at Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within seminar in Los Angeles: before you open the door, picture how someone would walk in who's there on business and feels confident, and walk in in that state, the way an actor steps into a role. This is about how you carry yourself, not about celebrating a win in advance. Before every time I go on stage, I turn off my phone an hour ahead, shut myself in a room, and get into the right state, because how I walk in decides the next two or three days of the seminar.

The second way is simpler: get a group together. If going alone is scary, call your friends and pile into the dealership together. On that call one member did exactly that right away. She said, "Take me with you," because she'd never get there on her own. Look at the consequences soberly: there's no $5 million on the line. The worst that happens is somebody laughs at you. As if nobody's ever laughed at you before.

How to stop making excuses to yourself

Excuses pile up quietly. You didn't do the task today, so you'll get the result a week later. Roughly, but a week. And for a lot of people those "a week later"s have been piling up for thirty years. As long as one extra day doesn't change anything, it feels like you can wait. One of the strongest drivers appears when waiting becomes more expensive than acting and every day of delay feels like a loss.

People ask me why in our programs they need to be pushed with deadlines and homework. Because that's what life looks like when nobody sets a deadline. An outside deadline is good at the start. It's a crutch, but I can't be your supervisor for the rest of your life. The goal is for you to hold the bar yourself. I covered how to raise it without burning out in how to raise your standards, and why work doesn't start without an outside deadline in why I only work under deadline pressure.

That's why our platform has journals and tracking sheets: books, workouts, focus of the day. When people talk, everyone's on fire: "I want this so badly." You open their journal for the month, and it's empty, with an explanation next to it. A fact can't make excuses, and that's exactly why it's useful.

How to stop making excuses and start taking action: 6 steps

1. Write out your note word for word. Every phrase you used over the past month to explain to yourself why you didn't do something: "no time," "not the right moment," "I need to prepare first." While an excuse only sounds in your head, it feels like a fact. On paper you can see it's the same phrase in different outfits.
2. Run each one through the rain test. Ask yourself: if this same circumstance stood between me and helping someone I love, would it stop me? If yes, it's a reason. If no, decide honestly: either you want the result and this is an excuse, or you don't want it and this is an honest "no," in which case cross the goal off without guilt.
3. Name your "what for" in one sentence, with a number. What it costs and by what date. If there's no number, go look: a dealership, a website, a boutique, a person who's already done it. The test drive is mandatory as long as the dream exists only as a picture.
4. Shut down the official reason in advance. Picture the main obstacle and write an "if…, then…" plan: "if nobody picks up after three rings, I dial the next number right away," "if there's no dealership in my city, on Saturday I drive to the next one." In a meta-analysis by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, plans like these across 94 independent tests showed a noticeable effect on reaching goals (d = 0.65).
5. Take the first step the same day. Said it today, did it today, without waiting for the mood. Make the step so small it's impossible not to take it if you want the result. If you're scared, bring friends or get into the right state, like before going on stage.
6. Report the fact, not the story. A journal, a tracking sheet, a message to an accountability partner: did it or didn't, no explanations. Trying doesn't count. Action counts.

Take my three rings. The note: "nobody's there." The rain test: if I needed to get through on that number for someone I love, I'd keep dialing until evening, so it's an excuse. What for: this many meetings a week, and without them there's no money. The plan: no answer, next number right away, no pause for relief. The step: say, twenty calls before lunch. The report: the number of calls in the tracking sheet in the evening. This breaks down the same way for any task, from a phone call to a test drive.

What if I slip back into making excuses?

A slip doesn't cancel the system. Excuses don't disappear for good, they change outfits, and a month from now "no time" can turn into "I'll finish this other thing first." So rewrite your note regularly, once a week, and see what new phrases have made it in. Missed a day? Pick up at the next step, no punishment. Shame about slipping becomes a new excuse in itself, because after it it's easier to never open the journal at all.

Where I could be wrong

There are real reasons. Illness, depression, chronic burnout, when you have no energy for weeks, those aren't excuses, and the rain test will honestly show the difference: states like that stop you even when it's for the people you love. Then you need to recover first, and pushing yourself harder is useless. I have a separate article on this: why burnout is not exhaustion. And second: if there's strong fear behind the excuses, shaming yourself doesn't work. That's why the steps above start with lowering the stakes and taking a small action. The standards for yourself stay high, but the step is so small it's impossible not to take it.

On that call one member did make it to the dealership in her city and looked at what they had, and it turned out that for her dream car she'd have to drive to the next town. I told everyone: today, guys, we get together and we go. Not in a week, and not when the sneakers arrive. It's not circumstances holding you back, and that's good news, because your intention, unlike the weather, is in your hands.