Don’t be a Crybaby

I can come up with hundreds of excuses why my paint contracting business might fail—illegals, the economy, cheap customers, the price of gas, bad employees, my hair hurts, and more. In fact, I could spend so much time making excuses that I would never have any time to market, sell jobs, or do anything else.

It’s easy to make excuses. It’s relatively easy to find things to complain about. It might take little effort, but it sure can waste a lot of time. And at the end of the day, what do we have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada.

Few people would admit to being a crybaby. That’s not a particularly nice epithet. But I suspect that there are a lot more crybabies than is admitted. Oh course, you aren’t one and neither am I.

One characteristic that marks all crybabies is that nothing is ever their fault. They can’t help it, nobody ever told them, it isn’t fair, etc. No matter what happens, the blame always rests with someone else. (Ironically, they fail to realize that if their failures are not their fault, then their few successes aren’t their creation either.)

All of us have things happen over which we have little or no control. For example, I have no control over the price of gasoline. I do have control over how much gasoline I purchase. Sometimes we must accept what comes our way, dust ourselves off, and get on with life. Crying about it won’t make it better. And besides, it really isn’t wise to thin your paint with tears.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008