Last week I wrote about the lies we tell ourselves, lies that keep us from getting where we want to go financially.

This week, it’s excuses.

Like these . . .

“The Stock Market is not trustworthy – Just look at my performance over the past decade or two.”

“I had that surgery and with the medical bills, we got behind and we’ve been struggling ever since.”

“Our car broke down and we had to have a dependable car – so we have this big car loan.”

“Kids’ travel hockey is very expensive what with the hotels, food on the road, equipment…”

Recently I heard from a client who had undergone surgery unexpectedly and got behind. When I met with this couple they had over $20,000 in credit-card balances, both cars were financed, and they were saving almost nothing for retirement. I asked when the surgery had happened, and he told me 7 years ago. Since then they both had received a number of pay increases and should have had plenty of money each month. They simply had gotten into some bad habits. I’m sure their excuse about the medical bills perpetuated this problem far longer than it needed to.

There are a couple of tools that can jar you out of using the same old excuses over and over again:

1.  Time-adjusted financial plan

2.  Net-worth sheet

If you do both of these every year, you will very likely start asking yourself better questions and begin moving forward.

Own your excuses.  Make sure they don’t own you.