What’s the harm of using excuses when they’re totally justified? Let’s answer that, from Malibu, California.
Life is a repeating series of expectations, efforts, and results. You want something or envision events going a certain way. Then you engage with the challenge or opportunity and experience some result. Quite often there’s a gap between what you expected or hoped for and what actually happened.
The act of “doing” is essential to the process of discovery. You likely won’t get it exactly right on the first attempt. And you can continue to learn on the thousandth. You’re dealing with the unknown, the unknowable, and the involvement of other people. After the fact, what happened is obvious, valuable information. But explanations become excuses when you use them to justify.
The temptation after a “less than” result is to point to all the things you just learned and realized and act like those factors disrupted your success. The problem with this is twofold. First, you reveal yourself, quite publicly, as an excuse maker.
Personally, I try to limit my dependence upon and interaction with excuse makers, because they’re a drain on energy and constantly looking for others to validate and empower their excuses.
The second problem with excuses is you miss the epiphanies. The gold nuggets. You now know the gap in your preparation, how long it actually takes to get there, the variable you didn’t think of, or the weak link in your plan. Own it. And celebrate the fact that you’ve now learned and incorporated a new, valuable lesson.
Excuses attempt to protect the ego while revealing a lack of accountability. When you own the results, whatever they are, you instantly gain their gifts and make faster, lasting progress. So, stop making excuses, and until next week, stay Off Balance on Purpose.