Let’s face it—we all make excuses. Sometimes, it’s the need of the hour, and other times, we surrender to our moods and situations. Whatever the case, it is crucial that we realize the consequences of making excuses in our day-to-day lives.
As much as we feel tempted to throw excuses at every task we want to avoid, we must understand that it comes with implications. We show signs of self-sabotage, undermine our potential, and ultimately allow fear and uncertainty to dictate our choices.
Have you already started thinking about the signs?
Let’s hear them first!
Hidden Cost of Making Excuses and How they Sabotage your Success Rate
- Making excuses comes into play when we resist stepping out of our comfort zone. Limiting ourselves and making excuses hampers our personal growth.
- Excuses create a cycle of avoidance, which, after a certain point, not only becomes difficult to maintain but also adds to our stress and anxiety.
- Excuses often result in the loss of opportunities that require action and commitment. It could be a relationship proposal, a job offer, or any other experience.
- Excuses land us into regrets. When we lose an opportunity following an excuse, we often fall into the lifelong regret that becomes burdensome with every passing day.
- Excuses often make us fall into the web of negative habits like procrastination and avoidance.
Excuses Are Your Worst Enemy: Crush Them Before They Crush Your Dreams
#1: Catch Yourself Making Excuses
The first thing you can do is catch yourself making excuses. The awareness that you rely on excuses is paramount if you want to rise above this trap. Try to understand the repercussions of making excuses for different reasons. Stop for a while and admit that you were catering to your mood and were unwilling to go to the office when you blamed the weather. You lacked motivation and feared failure when you procrastinated and said, ‘I’ll start tomorrow.’
When you start catching the truth behind these little instances, you’ll begin to unravel the patterns of self-sabotage that hold you back. Take a step forward by journaling your thoughts and feelings. It will help you find the real reasons behind your excuses.
#2: Take Responsibility for Your Actions
Your actual character building starts from the point when you start taking responsibility for your actions. Understand that making excuses can actually work against your own interests. You may think catering to your current moods and inclinations is your prime priority, but you miss the bigger picture when you serve excuses. To avoid this scenario, you can start by creating small and manageable goals for yourself. Also, daily affirmations like, ‘I am responsible for my choices, and I choose to take action’ can help you overcome the urge to make excuses.
SHOP ON AMAZON#3: Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
We often fall into the habit of making excuses when trying to stick to our comfort. This is where we miss seeing the bigger picture and end up making excuses to avoid an event at a given time.
Let’s do a small activity to find out how we avoid being uncomfortable. Think of three comfort zones: routine, relationships, etc. Set a 10-minute timer and start listing the excuses that you generally make. Make a separate column of fear next to the column of excuses and spend time contemplating it. Here’s one for your reference:
Let’s list a few excuses that we make and the real reasons behind them:
It will help you find the truths behind your excuses and deal with them in a better way.
| Excuse | Potential Reason |
|---|---|
| 🗣️ I am waiting for the right moment | Perfectionism or Indecisiveness |
| 🗣️ I can't afford it | Fear of Spending |
| 🗣️ I don’t have the right tools/resources | Fear of inadequacy or unpreparedness |
| 🗣️ I have too much going on right now | Overcommitment or inability to say no |
| 🗣️ Everyone else is doing it, so I don’t need to | Lack of accountability or commitment |
| 🗣️ I’ll do it when I feel more inspired | Avoidance of effort |
It will help you find the truths behind your excuses and deal with them in a better way.
#4: Don’t Fall for Perfection Trap
When we fall for perfection, we often get into the procrastination mode. So, if you are tempted to make excuses and don’t know why you are doing what you are doing, ask yourself if ‘I am chasing perfectionism. When you catch yourself striving for unattainable perfection, pause and reflect. Ask yourself if you’re truly chasing excellence or hiding behind perfectionism as a way to avoid taking action.
To overcome this tendency, you can start making realistic goals. Also, you must replace thoughts of “I must do this perfectly” with “I will do my best.
#5: Surround Yourself With Accountable People
When you surround yourself with people who remain accountable for their actions and keep their duty above everything, you will likely get their positive influence by staying in their company. Connect with a friend or colleague who shares similar goals. This will keep you motivated and determined to complete your tasks on time. You’ll slowly deviate from the habit of making excuses and taking responsibility for the matters that get assigned to you. You can even join the community where everyone in the group is trying to achieve a unified goal.
#6: Celebrate Your Wins
When trying to break the habit of making excuses, celebrate your efforts. It will make you feel good about your newfound attitude and transform your ways of dealing with a situation. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a grand celebration. You can treat yourself to your favorite snack and buy yourself the dress you’ve always wanted, or perhaps spend a fun time with your buddies to immerse in the flavor of leisure and relaxation.
Share Your Success: Talk about your achievements with friends or family. Sharing your victories helps reinforce your progress and inspires others.
Practical Tips to Stop Making Excuses
- Identify your excuses: When you are constantly being addressed as an excuse-maker, know that there’s a reason behind it and try to understand the ways in which you slip into the temptation of making excuses.
- Create a no-excuse list: Develop a mechanism or a habit where you work against the trait of making excuses. Instead of saying no to any task or activity, find reasons to say yes and take up the challenge of completing it in time.
- Establish a healthy Routine: We generally make excuses when we lack a fixed routine. Try to build a healthy routine and include all the essential components that you must to lead a balanced life.
- Set Micro Goals: Another potential reason we make excuses is when we set big and complex goals and targets. Instead of saying, “I‘ll finish the house cleaning,” say, “I’ll finish my room cleaning.” It’ll keep you motivated and won’t cause any discouragement.
- Choose an Accountability Buddy: When trying to break this pattern, you might find it difficult to remain accountable for your actions. Having an accountability buddy will make this task easier.
- Reward Yourself: It is important to keep yourself motivated and inspired to break the cycle of making excuses and procrastinating. For this, reward yourself appropriately from time to time.
- Reflect on consequences: Understanding the implications of making excuses is among the most critical steps that will help you move past this habit. So, take time to think about the consequences consciously and make timely adjustments to break the habit.
- Embrace Imperfection: One prominent reason we make excuses is that we hide our imperfections. Accept your imperfections as a part of yourself, and you will rise above them in no time.
- Limit Distractions: You often get carried away by distractions that deviate you from your main tasks. Limit distractions as much as possible, and you’ll never feel the need to make excuses.
Final Thoughts
Breaking the cycle of making excuses is a transformative journey that begins with self-awareness and accountability. Learning to accept your shortcomings and working towards them is not just about getting rid of this habit but about your overall development.
Commit to breaking this chain of making excuses, and you’ll transform in ways you’ve never imagined. For this, you can start by identifying your patterns, accepting them, and replacing them with constructive ways. As you cultivate a mindset focused on action rather than avoidance, you’ll not only overcome the habit of making excuses but also unlock your true potential. Start today—your future self will thank you!
How do excuses undermine personal growth and success rates?
