Day 7: Excuses
Week 1 Awareness
We’ve looked at some of the ways people think, and how negative self-talk, internal worries, and state of mind can hold you back at any moment in your life. Although this type of thinking is imprinted in our psyche to keep us out of danger, more often than not in the modern world this type of thinking serves no purpose and it holds you back.
Sometimes what people are saying to themselves doesn’t fit into the patterns we’ve already covered. There are some examples of negative self-talk that are just excuses. More specifically, the excuses that some people say to themselves every day.
Excuses are a general reflection of an underlying attitude or an unresourceful state of mind. Everyone has made up excuses when they don’t want to do something. In general, people make excuses to soften the reality of what’s going on and to give themselves an easier way out. There are times when excuses help. There are also times when excuses cause people to get stuck in their problems even more. Too many excuses are an indication that something needs to change.
Excuse 1: It’s Not My Fault
One of the things people do is offload responsibility, and this excuse is a reflection of that state of mind. Life is never one hundred percent under your control, but taking some responsibility for your life is still down to you. If you fail to admit this, you will never grow. By not taking responsibility, by not taking some of the blame, you will always be pointing your finger at others and looking for other reasons why you can’t do what you already know you need to do.
Hearing this excuse in your own self-talk tells you there’s a responsibility issue. Even if that initial problem you’re facing may not always be down to you, how you respond to that problem is. It may not be your fault, but how you respond to that fault is one hundred percent your responsibility.
This excuse also tells you that a person may not always be in the driving seat in their own life. By letting others take the lead, it also means that it’s easier for others to take the blame. Finding fault elsewhere gives you a passenger seat in life. How do you expect to get where you want to when all you do is find fault with others who you have let lead you? Finding fault takes you away from taking responsibility and from finding your own solutions. There’s a time when you need to stop pointing the finger and start figuring out what you’re going to do instead.
Excuse 2: I Don’t Know
After you leave school, you become one hundred percent responsible for improving yourself and your knowledge. In this age of technology and information, and for anyone with access to the internet, I don’t know is no longer a valid excuse. You don’t need to be an expert to take it on yourself to find out a little more, to find something that can help you, or to find someone who can point you in the right direction.
A large percentage of people already know the answer, and I don’t know is the convenient excuse they’re telling themselves so that they don’t need to find out more and can continue to make the wrong choices.
We live in an age where you can find out almost anything in seconds. I don’t know used to be a reasonable excuse. Now it’s just a choice not to find out.
Excuse 3: I Don’t Have Time
It’s true you generally don’t always have the time in the day to do everything you need to do. But seldom do results materialise overnight, and there’s never the time if you’re expecting instant results.
We all have 168 hours per week. We prioritise our time where our priorities lie. If your priorities change, you will find the time. Time is something we’re given and we need to invest it wisely. When was the last time you invested that time in yourself? Or perhaps it’s time to stop investing that time into other people’s priorities and start investing it into what’s important to you instead.
I don’t have time is an excuse. When you say it, all it really means is that you can keep carrying on doing what you don’t need to do instead.
Excuse 4: I’ll Do It Later
Seldom are things any different in the future, and there’s rarely a future super self that will do all of those things that need to be done now.
Ask yourself honestly: can you really rely on yourself to do something tomorrow? Why will tomorrow be any better than today?
I’ll do that later is one of the biggest excuses there is. Not only does it send what needs to be done now into an imaginary time in the future, it also sends your responsibility there too, softening how you should feel now for not really making the effort.
Future you isn’t more capable than present you. Future you isn’t more motivated. Future you is exactly the same as present you, except with less time and probably more excuses. If you won’t do it now, you won’t do it later. You’ll just have a better excuse for why you still haven’t done it.
Excuse 5: It’s Impossible
When you hear yourself saying it’s impossible, try asking yourself: if it was possible, what would be the first step? A mind focused on the impossible never tends to find a solution.
Many things feel impossible when you start. But feeling impossible and being impossible are not the same thing. Only by stretching what’s possible can we achieve what was once impossible. Stretching ourselves causes growth. And you never really get anywhere you really want to unless you grow.
As Nelson Mandela put it: it always seems impossible until it’s done.
Excuse 6: I Just Don’t Want to Fail
This is the excuse of people who are unprepared to try or to try again. The thinking is that if you don’t try anything, you can’t fail anything. The really sad fact is they’ve got it totally wrong. If you don’t try anything, you fail everything by default.
How about this instead: you either succeed or you learn. There’s no learning in inaction. People who are really successful see failure differently. They’ve probably failed worse than most of us and far more times too. For them, failing doesn’t make them a failure. It’s only an unfortunate event and they move on.
Avoiding failure is an away from goal, and the best goals in life are the ones you move towards. You’re probably never going to be able to focus your efforts on being successful when all you’re doing is blindly running from failure instead.
Excuse 7: I’m Too Tired
If you’re persistently tired, get it checked first. Fatigue has a long list of possible medical causes and it’s one of the commonest things a GP sees, so it’s always worth ruling out before assuming anything else. But if you’ve been checked and there’s nothing to find, this excuse is worth a closer look. It’s used by some to help them avoid the effort of dragging themselves forward towards something better. It’s an excuse to avoid the effort, the pain, the hardship, and also the new set of problems that will inevitably come with success.
When there’s no medical reason for the tiredness, the real problem may not be that you can’t be bothered. It may be that the bother it’s causing isn’t enough yet, and you still feel that doing something is going to be much more of a bother. Well, it probably will be. Just be honest with yourself from the start. This problem will only be fixed when you’re bothered enough to fix it.
The Pattern Behind All Excuses
These seven excuses are among the most common you will hear yourself or others say. They’re seldom used by really successful people. They can cause or continue to cause you problems in your life if you fail to catch yourself saying them in your own self-talk.
Excuses are just a reflection of an underlying negative state of mind. When you stop making excuses, then and only then will you reach the turning point that has held you back.
The thing about excuses is they feel true when you’re saying them. They feel reasonable. They feel justified. That’s what makes them so dangerous. They’re not obvious lies. They’re subtle enough to believe.
But here’s how you spot them. Listen for the softening language. Listen for the external blame. Listen for the future tense that never comes. And most importantly, listen for the feeling of relief that comes with saying them. Because that’s what excuses do. They relieve you of responsibility in the moment whilst guaranteeing you stay exactly where you are.
References
- Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1979). Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Real People Press.
- Beck, A.T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press.
- Burns, D.D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. William Morrow.
- Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. Lyle Stuart.
- Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum Press.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow.
- Seligman, M.E.P. (1991). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Knopf.
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C.H.M., Potts, H.W.W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.