We blame other things that are not the.......

Markus is late for work. His alarm did not wake him up and now he is in a hurry to get going.

He rushes his breakfast, storms out of the house, and drives to work.

When he finally gets through the traffic, it is 10 minutes past his start time. He is late.
 

He sits down and starts to work, hoping no one saw it, but it is not long before his boss shows up and reminds him about punctuality. Should it happen again, there will be consequences.

Markus is furious.

“Why didn’t my alarm clock work?” He asks himself and then answers confidently: “It must have been a faulty battery.”

On his way home he gets a new pack of batteries and changes the batteries before going to bed.
  

The next morning, Markus wakes up too late again, but barely manages to make it into work on time.

His boss, although not pleased, decides to let it go, since he was technically on time.

“Crap… again so close.” Markus says quietly to himself. “I have to get a new alarm clock.”

And so he goes and buys a new alarm clock, installs it, and, the next morning, he wakes up late once more.

This cycle continues for a while, until Markus eventually does get fired for being too late too often.
 

Had Markus been very direct and blunt with himself he might have figured out that the 5 hours of sleep he gets through watching too many series late at night may have been what was causing him to sleep through his alarm.

Maybe he would have understood that drinking 3 beers before going to bed also did not help and that it was his fault for getting late to work, not his alarm clocks fault.

But instead of taking responsibility and sacrificing some luxuries, Markus decides to lie to himself and blame something else.

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Most of us have similar problems to Markus, albeit in different areas of life.
  

We blame other things that are not the root cause of the problem.

We lie to ourselves to protect our comforts or avoid hard changes or difficult decisions, never realizing that we just suffer more in the end because of it.

We lie about how much we love our partner to avoid difficult conversations, lie about how good we are doing at our jobs and keep pretending we are fine to avoid working harder, and convince ourselves that we are doing enough for our own success by sitting on the couch even though our life is getting worse.

We do this all to avoid the hard, uncomfortable work.

But it is exactly that work which gets us ahead.

Remember that the truth is always simple.

Being honest, blunt and direct with yourself allows that simplicity to shine through.

It gives you an insight that breaks through the convoluted lies you tell yourself, but more importantly it opens up the opportunity for change.

If Markus had admitted that it was him who was at fault for waking up late he could have worked on himself rather than fixing the alarm clock.

If you never admit to a broken leg, you will never look to fix a broken leg. Why would you if you do not believe it is broken?

Only when you accept the truth is when you see a doctor, get the help and tread carefully in order to heal.

It is in this way that being blunt and honest with yourself allows the greatest opportunities for change and growth.

The difficulty is finding out what is true and what is false.

My advice on that note: Keep it simple.

Was it only the fault of your alarm clock that you were late to work? Yes or No?

Is your leg broken? Yes or No?

Are you doing enough to succeed as fast as you want to? Yes or No? Do you need help? Yes or No? Are you happy? Yes or No?

Do not spin vast tales and stories just so you get to avoid doing some of the hard and uncomfortable work.

Be direct, blunt and brutal in your honesty.

For when you are, doors open for you that you never saw existed.

-Lukas Schwekendiek