He ruined my life and various other excuses...

I love coaching my clients, moving them from fear and uncertainty to empowerment and action and experiencing the ‘light bulb’ moments they switch on, when suddenly their lives are changed forever.

Recently, I coached a fabulous lady, a sole parent of two teenagers; she was deeply in denial that she had anything to do with what happened in her life.
Everything ‘happened’ to her; she had no control (or so she thought) about these things that just ‘happened’ to her and she felt life was so unfair and she was just an unlucky person. Good things happened to other people.

She had built up a list of incidents as evidence to prove that her life was not successful. Rather than spending time looking for the good in her life that she could build on, she was constantly searching for the bad things ...just so she could say ‘see I told you so’.

Her husband left her and therefore he ruined her life.

Everything bad that happened in her life from the moment he left, and that was the story she told herself. It became the story of her life and also her excuse to never look for the good in her life or try to improve her life.

“I would have had a better house but my husband left me”
“I was going to travel more with the kids but my husband left me”
“I would have had a better job but my husband left me”
“I would have enrolled in a university course to be an accountant but my husband left me”

The list went on and on.  I asked my client how long ago she and her husband divorced as it appeared that it was a recent event which had rocked her world and put all her plans on ice. ‘Ten years ago’ was the answer.

Ten years of not taking responsibility for her own life and using the fact that her husband left her as a reason to not learn from the experience and move on to create a life full of her heart’s desires.

It was time for her to change her life. 

“So, what if the fact that your husband left you had nothing to do with what happened to you in your life?,” I asked her
She looked at me with a puzzled look. “But it does”, she protested  “Let’s just pretend, just for a moment that you were totally responsible for you and what happened in your world. That all the choices you made were yours and yours alone. What kind of world would you create for yourself if it was all up to you?”
I asked her to create a list of all the things she would do if she was in charge of her life. At first it was difficult for her to think of what to put on this list and there was some resistance. She had spent so many years frozen in time, because her husband left her. In her life plan, the plan she had mapped out for herself in her youth, that incident (her husband leaving her) wasn’t supposed to happen and her world stopped when it did.

Rather than see it as a bump in the road, it was the end of her road.

But after a little gentle coaching (“we are only pretending, so just play with the idea”) she had no problem with being creative and her list grew long. I encouraged her to think big, think creatively, and think of what you would love to do with your life – if you were totally in control of your choices.
Then I asked her to tell me what obstacles stood in the way of her doing all the things of her list.
She couldn’t think of anything. Everything was totally possible. It was all up to her.
It was her light bulb moment and it was wonderful to see.

The next day she enrolled in an accounting course and called a real estate agent to appraise her property for sale. She has commenced a saving plan and has booked a trip away with her kids. She is excited and happy and for the first time in ten years creating a life based on goals she can drive.

So if you are 100 per cent responsible for everything in your life what could you do that you are not doing now?

Who are you blaming? Your ex? Your parents? The school you went to or the company you keep?

We only do the best we can with the resources we have and we all do things to keep us safe, but what if we didn’t need to use our past to inhibit our future?
What would you be doing today to improve your life if you had no excuses?

Make a commitment today to have no more excuses, to take 100% responsibilty for creating your world - make your list today – and start living.