What's your excuse?

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs in the last few days.  What stands out for me isn't what he did (which is remarkable of course) but what he overcame. 

Of the many tributes circulating on Facebook, this one caught my eye:

Steve Jobs:

• Given up at birth
• Dropped out of college
• Fired from Apple
• His second company failed
• He returned to Apple in a major comback 11 years later
• Changed how the world communicates.

The tribute ended with the simple challenge, 'What's your excuse?'

As a coach, I often talk with people who have fallen into an easy pattern of blaming something outside themselves when things don't go as they'd hoped.

• It failed because everyone wants a piece of me
• It wasn't my fault we missed the deadline- it was my boss/the team/the project/the other section
• It's not in my genes to be in the normal weight range
• There aren't any nice guys out there
• There's no way I can have 'me time'
• The idea would never work
• Nothing works out for me
• I don't have enough money to succeed
• That didn't work - I give up

While Jobs was sleeping on friends' floors, returning Coke bottles for food money and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishne temple, it is fair to speculate that his passion was intact.  It is fair to speculate that, while things were undoubtedly tough, he looked beyond his circumstances and imagined what could be...

We have the choice to see ourselves as the 'cause' of the things that happen, or as passive beings - with things happening to us, largely beyond our control.  Many opt for the latter perspective because it 'gets us off the hook'. 

The more responsibility we take for how things turn out - good and bad - the more chances we open up to change the outcome.  The more ownership we take, the more freedom we have.

We can look at a situation and choose to feel trapped by it, looking for other people and circumstances to blame, or we can ask 'What can I do differently that will cause the desired outcome?' 

By making this shift in thinking, obstacles start to seem less imposing.  Excuses start to evaporate...

This week, in honour of a man whose vision and passion has touched so many, why not identify the areas in your life where you are making excuses.  Acknowledge the part you are playing if situations have become stagnant and take responsibility for finding a way out.

If you have a roof over your head, food on your table and you are employed, you're already way ahead of where Jobs started ...