Defeating Excusitis, the Failure Disease

From the archive: originally published January 2013 on the Empower Network blog.

Excusitis:

The Failure Disease.

There is an automated mechanism inside your consciousness that literally saves you from being crazy.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) Read the Wikipedia Article HERE.

(not that it will make any sense 🙂 )

Basically:

The Reticular Activating System controls your attention, and helps you create a perception of order out of an otherwise chaotic universe.

What do I mean?

You may notice that you don’t pay attention to most of what you see, hear, feel, and think. For example, if you’re reading this sentence… you’re not paying attention to the skin on the bottom of your feet – how it feels, how warm or cold your skin is… or your breathing.

You may not notice the rate of your breathing at all, if you’re reading this sentence – or did the fact that I mention it cause you to take a deep, slow breath, and relax?

You, like me don’t pay attention to much.

You don’t, because you can’t.

Why? And what does that have to do with excuses? And what’s the failure disease, exactly?

More on that in a minute.

First, a Crazy Story…

Have you ever had a moment in your life, when you literally were at the right place, at the right time – maybe you even have a particular feeling as you remember, where the impossible happened, against all odds?

Let me share a magical story with you, and then, I have an assignment.

I had the idea to start Empower Network in April of 2011… 7 months before we actually launched. It was the MOST impossible thing that I had ever tried to do.

I don’t make excuses.

For anything.

See, a long time ago, I was listening to an audio… and I heard a voice tell me something profound. This guy was talking about beliefs.

I had always assumed that beliefs were something that HAD to be true. However, life has taught me over the years… that most things we think are ‘totally true’ turn out later, to be either not true, or only some of the complete truth.

Barely anything has stuck around as ‘completely true’.

However, our nervous systems, and brains, are wired to sort through life through the filter of beliefs. In fact…

…your ‘RAS’ is an automated mechanism that constantly sorts out, filters, deletes, and distorts the world around you to prove that EXACTLY what you already believe is the truth.

So… while most of what you believe is not the complete truth… your mind will constantly be badgering you with proof.

So this guy (in his beautiful arrogance) said:

“Why don’t I just believe what helps me create the results that I want?”

Fascinating.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you put aside all of your ‘completely true’ beliefs. I’m not suggesting that at all.

Because what I’m saying is – for all of the rest of it… why not replace stuff that creates misery – with only that which creates power and victory?

That being said, regardless of what you believe what I’m about to say… or whether you don’t believe it, I think you’ll find it incredibly useful.

Back to my crazy story.

So I go online, with this idea – this vision… to create the Empower Network.

No big software development companies would take me seriously.

(my site looked a little too schemey, they said)

I ran into brick wall… after brick wall… after brick wall.

Until:

I kept fighting, and breaking them down. Then… something magical happened. While I don’t have time to tell the entire story in a blog post.

What happened?

What always happens when you act with unbreakable conviction:

The old Universe broke down, and I was in the right place, at the right time, for 3 months straight, in impossible situations – and had any one of about 10,000,000 circumstances not happened EXACTLY as they are… Empower Network wouldn’t have existed, would have collapsed, or wouldn’t have taken off as big, and as powerfully as it did.

When you act with unstoppable, unbreakable belief, you crack the rigid walls down, and the beliefs systems around you down, and the world seems to break apart, and re-organize, to get you exactly what you want.

What does that have to do with excuses?

I have a quick assignment for you:

Write a blog post about a time in your life the impossible happened – because you believed something against the grain of the Universe.

Now, for the explanation:

Beliefs control your perception. Your RAS is an automated unconscious mechanism that is there to prove exactly what you want and believe.

Your nervous system is taking in an unbelievable amount of data, that makes no sense until it’s labeled with meaning, sorted for importance, while other data is distorted, deleted, and generalized so the Universe makes sense like you want it to.

Excuses are negative beliefs about the future.

They are beliefs that are not valid, because the future is always paced out in time.

The past has absolutely nothing to do with your future, other than being a useful playground of learning.

Your current situation has nothing to do with your future.

When you say “I can’t, because…” what you’re actually doing, is casting a non creating belief into your future.

A belief that you don’t want.

A belief that doesn’t serve you.

A belief that won’t help you get what you want.

Excuses are… a form of disease, called ‘Excusitis’ or the disease of failure. We could also call it ‘wussyitis’.

See, there is no ‘I can’t, because’ because the future doesn’t exist right now. Because you create it as you live your life. Because it can be however you believe it to be.

Because YOU can have anything that you want.

YOU can do anything that you want.

And you can simply replace it with “I’m GOING to… BECAUSE…”

My brother is a hypnotist. (a really good one)

He taught me something cool.

He taught me that the beliefs of the hypnotist affect the client, 100% of the time in therapy.

If the hypnotist believes a client can’t change in an instant – they can’t.

However, if they believe that all things are possible, that in one moment – everything can turn around, in an impossible circumstance…

Because of that, he doesn’t think it’s ethical for a hypnotist to have a practice unless they believe their clients have the power inside you, right now, to get whatever you want.

And you do.

I’m a unique person.

I believe in you so powerfully, that I don’t care if you live in a dumpster, have half your brain missing, and smell even funnier than me…

…I believe you can do this.

I believe you can do this so strongly, and I have seen so many crazy, impossible stories to validate my belief… that my belief crashes down the false universes of struggle… wherever I go, and whoever I’m around.

There are no excuses that are real.

There’s only one kind of future that you want to create – and that is EXACTLY what you want.

Instead of making excuses – create reasons, and take massive action, now.

You will be glad you did.

To Victory,
David Wood
“I punch excuses in the face…”