“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
Benjamin Franklin
That applies to both me and women, if you’re great at making excuses then you’ve become overly adept at justifying your failure, and that’s not healthy!!!
It’s easy to come up with excuses as to why we don’t take action, why do don’t give or all, why we make silly mistakes, and why we keep delaying setting off in pursuit of our dreams. It’s a difficult thing saying that you are going to do something that will drag you kicking and screaming out of your comfort zone, your mind knows this and your mind will be going into overdrive trying to persuade you to stick with an easy life.
We are a remarkable species, we have achieved incredible feats in science and engineering, there are athletes who have pushed their bodies to quite remarkable levels, and on top of all that, we have this truly awe inspiring ability to come up with reasons that justify our not taking action, and we actually believe them.
If you only make excuses once in a while then it will be viewed as one of those things, but do it on a regular basis and people will start to question your reliability, and if the right people are questioning your ability to deliver results then you will have problems.
There is a wonderful BBC comedy called Last of the Summer Wine (which I cannot recommend highly enough). One of the characters is Howard, and he is forever having to come up with excuses to explain where’s he’s been and who he’s been seen with. He’s the perfect example of the stressful nature of coming up with excuses, of always having to remember just what it was that you’d said, and the way that your body language screams out that you are hiding something.
If you’ve got problems then it’s important that you own up to them, both for the sake of your credibility and for your pride and confidence. And if you have problems, isn’t it time that you started doing something about them?
If you make a mistake then you accept responsibility for your actions and you do what you can to rectify the situation. If you can take responsibility for what you have done then you will have more credibility and people will trust you more.
Don’t forget that along with the flaky behaviour and the body language that screams out that you’re being economical with the truth, if you get into the habit of making excuses then you are in the habit of not only excusing failure, but you’re also programming yourself to accept failure as normal for you.
Making excuses is a habit and because it’s a habit you can break it.
The first stage is to accept that you have a problem, because until you do that you won’t be able to deal with it. Once you can accept that you have a problem then you need to identify the areas that you struggle in. It could be that you procrastinate or that you take on too much work, those are easy to deal with, it becomes more difficult if you’ve got into the habit of blaming others for your shortcomings or that you’ve become flexible in how you keep your word.
I’m not going to get caught up in dealing with procrastination and time management otherwise I’m never going to finish this article! What I will say is that if you do procrastinate then you need to go back to basics and break everything that you need to do into steps, and take it one step at a time. If you take on too much work then you need to first learn a magic word, and that word is NO!!! If you take on too much work then you won’t be able to get anything done and you’ll end up with a reputation for unreliability. Work on your time management skills, prioritise what you do, and you’ll surprise yourself at what you can achieve.
Irrespective of why people have lost their trust in you, you’re going to have to rebuild your reputation from scratch. Try to ignore everything that has happened before and treat today as the first day of the new you.
If you have something to apologise for, for example you missed a deadline or forgot an anniversary, then apologise, give the absolute minimum reason as to why what happened, happened, and then say nothing. People don’t need to hear sob stories as to what happened; they want the truth and nothing but the truth. Tell them what happened and if they want to know more then they will ask.
Some people will accept what you tell them and that’s the end of the story, on the other hand there are those who won’t and you could face criticism. The important thing is that you don’t let that criticism put you on the defensive, accept it and deal with it, don’t forget that they could be right. If the criticism is work related then find out what the problem is, and then work with your line manager to see how you can improve things.
There are certain areas in your new life that you are going to have to address as matters of urgency. Excuse makers are not viewed as strong characters so need to let people see that you can be strong and assertive. If you’ve struggled for a while then it’s highly likely that it’s damaged your self-confidence, your task is to rebuild your belief in yourself and the knowledge that you are more than capable of getting the job done. Finally, and this one can only be achieved over time, you have to win back all the respect that you’ve lost, and the only way that you’re going to doing that is by your actions.
Having accepted that you have a problem you need to grit your teeth and start moving forward. You need to accept the fact that people are likely to be less trusting of you and work to prove them wrong. You also need to accept that no matter how rehabilitated you become, you like the rest of us will find that there are always people who don’t like you, that there are always people who are critical of you, and just like the rest of us you need to be able to ignore them and get on with what you are doing.
Don’t take on more work than you’re capable of completing because you’ll miss your deadlines and that will make you look bad. I realise that it can be difficult not to say no to having the work piled on top of you, so just explain the situation, if you haven’t got the time to take on more work then you haven’t got the time.
You could be tempted to complain, but unless you have something genuine to raise then no one wants to hear it.
It’s entirely up to you what choices you make in life, you can get on with your life or you can waste your time searching for excuses and complaints.
Your excuses will always hold you back from pursuing your dreams, but it’s up to you if you want to change or not.
There will never be enough time to get everything that you want done. People will always discriminate against you because you’re either too young or too old. You will never be all wise and knowing, but you can ask for help or you can learn the skills that you need.
Unless you pick the winning lottery numbers then nothing good is ever easy, and if you are serious about success then you’ll have to work hard in order to achieve it.
You can watch your life pass you by as you seek inspiration for what to do, or if you wait for the right time. Maybe you’ll start tomorrow, but then tomorrow never comes.
Maybe you have a lot on your plate, which is something that we can all associate with, but how much of what you have on your to do list is important, and how much of it is just a waste of your time?
Sometimes people make excuses because they are frightened, they might be on the cusp of something big but instead of seeing everything that could go right, they focus exclusively on what could go wrong. Nothing in life is a certainty, as no matter how well prepared you are, there is always something that can go wrong. It’s true, everything could go wrong, but then it could exceed your expectations. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, you have to be able to believe in yourself abilities, and you have to try. Personally I think that it’s far better to try and fail than to never try at all, and to always wonder, what if…
If you’ve got into the habit of making excuses then you can break it, but as with everything to do with you mind you need to take it one step at a time, and don’t expect to deal with it overnight. You don’t need to waste your life and your time thinking of excuses, think instead of a dream that you can work towards. Every time that you honour a commitment that you have made you will take one step closer to your and one step further away from your dependency on excuses and failure.
Failure is like a comfort blanket because no one expects anything from you, it’s a lot more difficult to take action because it means that people have expectations of you, and worse, you have expectations of yourself.
You have a simple choice. You can make excuses and watch all of your hopes and dreams drift away, or you can get on with living your life and pursuing your dreams, the choice is yours.