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How often do you catch yourself making excuses?
Instead of doing something, you come up with ways to explain your inaction? You know it but you find it easy than listening against yourself, isn’t it? That you become too busy framing excuses and you forget to listen what the other person has to say. You neglect taking responsibility for the events you worked for, you passed by. You explain why you didn’t do it, why you couldn’t, shouldn’t or simply wouldn’t do it.
Excuses are invented reasons we create to defend our behavior, to postpone taking action or simply as a means of neglecting responsibility. Excuses are mainly a means of placing the blame of an internal problem on an external condition.
We tend to waste our life explaining ourselves, justifying our wrong actions, defending ourselves and we often just watch time pass by. It yields no results except for it makes you habitual of running away from things, pitying yourself, regretting decisions, blaming situations and people, manipulating the past, present and impacting your future, limiting your potential yourself, poor listening and most importantly failing to widen your comfort zone. It often makes your personality proportional to that of a liar and of a person who is not easily trusted by others.
The most amazing part is that just like any other thing you do, making excuses is just a habit. Working on it will make it go away!
Why We Make Excuses?
1. Impatience and Laziness
You wish that everything should be served to you. Do you really expect life to be a flower bed readily willing to give you what people work so hard for? Unfortunately, life does not work that way. Lack of willingness to work on it also forces you to justify your inactions.You wish that everything should go at perfect timings which is never, never possible. Everyone has their own timeline and ups and downs always will change the graph.
2. Belief in ‘Perfection’
Anything that is less than what you’ve imagined is a waste to you and despite of making it better, you leave it that way and justify why it should not be changed for better and why you didn’t change it.
“Success is not obtained overnight. It comes in installments; you get a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow until the whole package is given out. The day you procrastinate, you lose that day's success.”
― Israelmore Ayivor
3. Comparison
You compare yourself with people and instead of learning from them, you become envious, jealous and stop admiring people at all. You explain yourself why you’re better.
4. Threat to Identity and Personality
Caring way too much for how others will look at you can make you lose your mental peace. You wish to explain why you’re not what they are thinking just by your words and not actions.
“The trouble with excuses, however, is that they become inevitably difficult to believe after they’ve been used a couple of times.”
― Scott Spencer
5. Not Accepting Yourself
Thinking yourself as less than other people often forces you to explain yourself to them. It further burdens you to continue this practice.
6. Fear of the Unknown
Has anyone ever asked you what are you so scared of and you had no reply? It is a fear that has settled in our minds that lets us down in our own eyes.
7. Fear of Embarrassment
‘This is so embarrassing.’ You may not even realize it that how much you’re pressurizing yourself to fit into someone else’s definitions which keep on changing.
8. Fear of Mistakes and Failure
Mistakes and Failures fertilize your goals. Don’t be scared of them. At least you’re trying.
9. Fear of Responsibilities
“Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy
Life is all about responsibilities. Running away from them is running away from life! That leads to death.
10. Not Adaptable to Uncertainties and Change
Change is the only constant. You will feel tired once you’ve ran enough. Everything keeps on changing. One must know how to adapt themselves. There will be new situations, new relationships, new challenges you will face. You cannot keep on living the same life, can you?
11. Lack of Confidence and Low Self-Esteem
Confidence is the key of happy living. It is often killed by Ego and thinking of others as no one.
“To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.”
― Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery
A Confident person will not even care what others have to say!
12. Lack of Aim and Goals
“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.”
-Jordan Belfort
13. Unrealistic Expectations
Expecting too much and not working to achieve those makes you feel ashamed and forces you to frame unnecessary explanations for failure.
14. Approach of ‘Words Greater Than Actions’
If someone keeps telling you why they were right, and do just the opposite, would you want to believe?
Others are no different. They won’t believe either.
15. Speaking, No Listening
Poor Listening makes you misunderstand things and you often end up speaking things that were not at all required.
“Never make excuses. Your friends don't need them and your foes won't believe them.”
― John Wooden, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
16. Immaturity
This explains it all-
“Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize everything that happens in life is a result of the previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.”
― Roy Bennett
Written by - Rashi Jain
Edited by - Nidhi Verma
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