Excuses are the nails used to build the house of failure."
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Excuses are like a leaking roof that you refuse to fix. It will continue to embarra.s.s you till you sort it out. No one cares about how you tried actually, save that story for another
day, what is important is you either get the job done or accept the responsibility for failure, then try again and again till you fix things.
I have often wondered why people love to make excuses instead of doing the right things. I realized over time it"s not far- fetched, most people who make excuses wished they did things right but are too egoistic on one part, and too timid on the other part to accept responsibility for their shortcomings.
The dangers of making excuses instead of doing the right things are way too many, because nothing will get done on the long run if everyone offered excuses instead of accepting responsibility for what they should have done but refused to do.
Another way to look at excuses is the way a rocking chair works, it keeps moving but on a spot, most people who make excuses always appear busy, but they are always so busy doing nothing, because they have ready-made answers to defend their inactions.
One of the places where many people tend to make excuses is at the workplace, they seem to have perfect answers to every question on why things weren"t done as at when due. n.o.body will take responsibility for what wasn"t done the right way except the ones with leadership qualities, in fact one of the attributes of good leadership is taking responsibility for one"s actions and inactions.
Common Excuses
A typical example of an excuse is "I would have been the best footballer in Nigeria if not for my ex-girlfriend that discouraged me from playing football," another excuse is"I would have pa.s.sed my secondary school certificate examination if not for my cla.s.smates that kept disturbing me with loud music when we were studying for the exams" and again "I would have been at work except that the heavy rainfall didn"t allow me to get a taxi," one more "I had to stop my business because I just couldn"t get buyers at the time to patronize my business, " and finally "I failed the interview because the head of the Human Resources department didn"t like my face."
These examples of excuses are only pointing at something, what is it if you may ask? There would always be reasons for not getting things done or failing at achieving something. That is the truth about life: wewillalwaysfindareasonfornotdoingtheright things or for being lazy or manufacture a reason for failing at what others excelle dat.
Let us reason together, do you believe the world could easily have been totally underdeveloped or extremely backward if excuses for failure were allowed? I know some people would wish that excuses weren"t exactly frowned at by the society, so they can always get off the hook for their endless failings. Excuses can actually get addicted if you find succour in them.
How to Stop
The best way to stop making excuses especially when you see them as some sort of an escape route is to understand and accept the fact that n.o.body can save you except you. Once you know this and you are completely sold out to this philosophy, then it becomes easier to deal with the habit. It"s actually a very destructive habit, it"s like lying to yourself and sadly believing them as well. One thing about this habit is that it can make you stay on a spot for years without any sign of growth. So if you want to experience any form of growth in life, you must deny yourself the luxury of making excuses, you have to be very hard on yourself. Tell yourself that you are to be blamed for any mistake you make, because the truth about mistakes is you either allow them happen because you drove the process wrongly or they happened because you didn"t act appropriately or you ignored the warning signs. So don"t try to pa.s.s the blame on others, always accept responsibility for the wrong things that happen under your watch, in the process you will discover it is better to always do things the right and proper way the first time. The more you reason this way, the more you will realize that you can"t afford to make excuses anymore other than getting things done because you will still have to clean up the mess at the end of the day by yourself.
Another way to put an end to this habit is to always seize the opportunity to lead in every little way you can, in your community, housing estate, immediate environment etc. One of the burdens of leadership is to take the fall when things don"t happen as planned, that"s why some chief executives or government officials resign from their positions when all fingers point at them for non-performance of their team or subordinates, no one spares a leader, so if you want to effectively learn how to stop making excuses, then take up leadership roles, you will be amazed at how the pressure of performance will flush out every tendency of yours to make excuses.
In Conclusion
If excuses were allowed at the highest level of decision making in the world, no one will ever get fired, no one will ever get jailed and no one will ever get punished for whatever that goes wrong because there will always be a reason for things not getting done the right way.
Also, if you have noticed, no serious organization or establishment allows someone who is reputed to be an artful dodger to rise to the top. An artful dodger is evasive and crafty. They love to hide anytime the stake is high, they buckle under pressure, so they have to be avoided because such will always have aperfectalibiforeveryerror, be it one of commission or omission.
There is also a very vital advice for everyone: be careful about how you allow the habit of making excuses catch up with you, it slowly takes over you with ease, especially for the perfectionists who hate to be corrected. These are the ones who through ego never want to accept the responsibility for any wrong doing, they hide behind the mask of smooth words and good diction to deflect attention away from their shortcomings.
Let me add this before I close this chapter, the habit of making excuses will give you a false sense of hope that all is well, when all is not well, because failure precedes success most times, so you can"t afford to make excuses because the quickest way to turn failure to success is to accept responsibility for your mistakes and quickly turn things around to your advantage. If you deny yourself the opportunity failure provides through excuses or blames trading, you will never rise beyond a certain level in life and that remains the eternal truth.