When was the last time that you said “I don’t have time”? As human beings, we are programmed to avoid exiting our comfort zone at all costs. This makes us very good at making excuses to anything that pushes us out of it. However, the cost of setting excuses sometimes can be huge, and impact deeply in our future. Have you ever thought that dedicating just 30 minutes a day to a specific objective (30 minutes that easily go away just scrolling on social media) means 15 HOURS of active work per month? It may not sound like much, but over the time that can get really big results that otherwise we would never see.

Last week I was on vacation from my job, and it was one of the most productive weeks that I had in many years. Was it because I had more spare time? Not necessarily. I woke up later, and spent my mornings (time that I usually work) doing nothing special. However over the last months I started to feel stuck in my life. I didn’t feel like I was making any progress in my career, or my skills at all. I had several business ideas but I hadn’t even started to plan them or do even the most basic research. Last week I switched my mind, and realized that I’d stay exactly where I was unless I changed something. And I had to start ASAP.

So I started working in some of my personal objectives, and made an enormous amount of progress in a very short time. Seeing those results also brought a dose of motivation, that kept me going and making progress. It’s inevitable to feel a little bad thinking that if I could be lightyears above where I am now if I decided to just take action instead of making excuse after excuse. We don’t have to overthink that, because the past cannot be changed. Instead of that, we have to focus in our future, as it will only be the result of all the actions that we take, and we should always prioritize doing actions that bring us closer to our objectives. There’s nothing like being able to say “I dreamed about it, I took action and even if I failed some times, I finally did it”.

Most people have big dreams, but only a few actively do something to reach them. Making excuses is the easiest path, but it takes one to nowhere. If you take a breath and just jump you will be ahead of most of the people. If you are in the excuse trap and avoiding getting out of your comfort zone, the time to take action is now. Your future is in your hands.

-Tostti