Become so different in action that your old excuses lose your address.

Excuses survive on familiarity. They know exactly where to find you because your patterns have not moved, and each time you reach the same friction point, the same explanation shows up ready to serve. Argue with an excuse and it just gets more articulate. Change the pattern and it simply cannot locate you anymore.

Rather than trying to think your way out of a favorite excuse, pick the specific behavior it usually protects and alter that behavior once. Change the hour, the room, the order, the first step. Excuses lose their power when the situation they were written for stops occurring.