7 Excuses Getting in the Way of Taking the Leap of Your Life
You had the insight, the breakthrough —the moment of undeniable clarity. In the precise moment of this emotional state, you have 100% certainty you must do it. There is no wavering. There is no space left for doubt, fear and uncertainty: it feels right to you, and you’re all in.
Whether your insight was around a career move, a tough conversation you must have, a bold adventure, finally hiring a mentor or coach —or another radical shift of your life:
You knew exactly what you had to do.
This is the moment of undeniable clarity way too many people hope, pray and wish for —and it often comes during the random, quiet moments of life.
You feel inspired, enthusiastic and capable of bringing it to life.
But then, something else happens: time starts to pass, your enthusiasm starts to fade —and you lose the original emotional state you were in. With time passing, so does your belief, clarity, and possibility in making it real.
Until one day, it’s gone.
In this post, I’m going to reveal 7 common excuses that get in the way of taking the leap of your life —the bold decision in front of you. Because if you don’t heed the call: you may never get it back.
And to me, the great tragedy of this is knowing we’re all one radical decision away from a life we can’t wait to wake up, feeling deeply on purpose, fulfilled and achieving the results we’ve only dreamed of.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #1: It’s not the right time.
“It’s not the right time, Tommy.”
I hear this all the time —from people who understand they’re going down the wrong path and are destined to wake up in a painful crisis if they stay on it. Or, people will come to me for coaching and use this as a convenient excuse to not invest in their dreams.
But guess what? Believing this means fear is winning: using time as a convenient way to let you off the hook and rob you of your dreams. Because it will never be the right time and you will never feel ready.
You’re not supposed to feel ready, that’s the entire point of making a bold decision into the unknown.
Remember: this is a radical decision, it’s not what you’re choosing to have for breakfast tomorrow morning. When you recognize fear is using the “right” time as an excuse —you can acknowledge her and take the next step anyway.
The right time is the moment you make a committed decision and go all in on the leap of your life.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #2: I don’t know the “how.”
You had a bold moment of clarity, a vision deep within your mind, body and spirit —and for a moment, you were all in. As time passed, you started to notice the distance in what we call “the gap”: your current reality versus your leap’s vision.
And then you focused on the “how” —and ceased all momentum. As I wrote in a previous book: the how is where dreams go to die. When people and clients tell me they don’t know the “how” —I simply say: you’re not supposed to.
Here’s the truth: if you knew every step of the how, it would tell me one of two things: one, you’re either playing small —or you’re on someone else’s path.
Instead, focus on the what (the leap of your life), the why (your emotional reason for making it real) and then taking the first step. As you go on, the how starts to reveal itself in magical ways.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #3: What if I fail?
The fear of failure will hold countless people back from taking the leap of their lives —and yet is a broken mindset rooted in scarcity. Because here’s the raw truth: the greatest failure is staying exactly where you are right now.
Please read that as many times as needed to strike the emotional chord inside of you that knows it’s time to make the change you’ve been putting off.
Because if you’re having a desire to change —you don’t want things to stay the same. This is what the leap of your life is all about: radical transformation. By using the fear of failure as an excuse —you automatically fail. You’ve already lost.
This is not a cliche, this is real life: the greatest risk is not taking one. The greatest failure is waking up 8 years down the line knowing you missed your shot. The biggest pain you’ll ever feel is the one of deep-rooted regret:
You had an opportunity to radically shift your life, to step into the boldest version of yourself —but you let a little fear win. You let your doubts win. This fear will keep you stuck time and time again and there’s only one way to overcome it: go all in and never look back.
Burn the boats, get rid of Plan B, C & D…and do it now.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #4: What will they think?
The below is an actual excerpt from the book, The Leap Of Your life around the topic of caring what others think in regards to your bold dreams:
Do you want the secret? No matter what you do in life, you’re going to be judged. You can stay stuck the rest of your life, and you’ll be judged. You can take the bold leap, and you’ll be judged.
If you speak up, you’ll be judged. If you stay quiet, you’ll be judged. It’s part of life, and it’s never going to go away. Once you recognize this, the stranglehold judgment has on you will begin to loosen.
However, there is one judgment that matters: it’s the judgment from the person looking back at you in the mirror every single day. That does carry weight because we have to live with ourselves every single day. We take ourselves everywhere. For the rest of our lives.
Here, if we avoid the leap — we must live with the fact that we’re going to judge ourselves the rest of our lives for not making the decision we knew was right. Yes, we can rationalize and compartmentalize it as much as we want. But it won’t go away.
So the question is: will you stay stuck in fear of other’s judging you —and ultimately judge and resent yourself?
Once you recognize this, you experience an inner freedom like never before.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #5: Things are good where I am
“But Tommy, I should be grateful I have a steady job and career —and I don’t want to lose it..things are good.”
This is what I call ‘fake’ gratitude: something in life is causing you pain, stress, and anxiety —and you know it must change. But we use a plastic, manufactured form of gratitude to keep us from getting radically honest.
When I work with clients, we delete “good”, “fine” and “okay” from their vocabulary. Because most times, good is not good. Fine isn’t really fine: it’s one step away from mediocre —and is proof of complacency at best and hopelessness for a better future at worst.
If you find yourself saying things are good, take a moment to get honest: are they really that good? Allow yourself to go deep into the real feelings you’re experiencing without judgment, blame or any excuses.
Because the way I see it: you’re not here for good. You’re here for riveting, on fire and powerful. You’re here to be amazed at all the possibility life has to offer.
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #6: Sure, you did it. But how can I?
“Yeah, of course they did it —they don’t have kids, they’re not struggling, they have all the skills they need to make their dreams come true.”
Here’s the truth: you and I will always find creative ways of propping other people up and making them extraordinary with talents, skills, and circumstances we tell ourselves we don’t have.
One of my mentors (and someone who was featured in the Leap of Your Life) —is Lisa Nichols, and she has a brilliant line about this:
“You want to make me extraordinary because it lets you off the hook.”
Because here’s what I know to be true: there are people who have done it with worse circumstances than you right now.
They’ve done it with less money, more stress —and a more troubled past. They’ve done it with zero skill, a crippling environment and a host of reasons not to do it.
But they did it anyway. Will you?
Leap Of Your Life Excuse #7: I don’t know what I want.
The last common excuse for not taking the leap of your life is when you tell yourself:
“I don’t know what I want.”
“I have no idea what my purpose is.”
“I need to discover what I really want to do next.”
And I’m here to tell you, based on the last 7 years of being in-the-trenches with people from all over the world and helping them create clarity and breakthroughs:
It’s not true.
Because if you were right here, in front of me —I could get you to a level of clarity where you know your next step and what you desire.
However, declaring this takes tremendous courage and vulnerability: something most of us are trained to run away from and do anything to avoid.
Am I convinced you know every step of your vision? No, not at all: as I mentioned earlier —you don’t need that level of clarity.
All you need to know is your next step, and a general sense of your North Star vision…and to give yourself permission to be honest.
It’s Your Time…Order the Leap Now!
I share these excuses with you for one reason: I used to believe all of these, too. And because I did: I woke up scattered, stuck and losing belief in myself. I found myself going down the wrong path, with the wrong people.
Until I woke up on a New Year’s Eve night and experienced a moment of knowing this was it.
If any of these connected with you —my brand new book, The Leap of Your Life: How to Redefine Risk, Quit Waiting For ‘Someday,’ and Live Boldly is for you.
Order now at Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore, or here on Amazon and ensure you step into the boldest version of yourself and stop waiting to make the move calling you.
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