“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. “
– Benjamin Franklin

Late one evening as I was writing in my journal, I reflected on how my day had gone.  Frankly, it had been a pretty lousy day, and I vented in my journal as I fumed to myself.

I wrote and wrote – complaining about how one thing didn’t work out and how another situation wasn’t fair, and then mid sentence…I stopped myself.

I paused, looked over what I had written, and, disgusted with myself, I scratched the whole page out.

In an instant, my perspective changed – I realized my mistake, and below my ranting, I wrote out ten words.

In big bold letters, written with absolute conviction and triple underlined is a mantra that I have repeated to myself many times since that difficult evening.

In my moment of quiet, personal desperation I got fed up with myself, denied myself the satisfaction of complaining – and wrote…

F#!$  EXCUSES. YOU WORK TOO DAMN HARD TO MAKE EXCUSES.

We are all multiple people every day – a calm version of ourselves, an angry version of ourselves – and sometimes, an inspired, persistent version of ourselves.  In that brief moment, the inspired, persistent Sid inside me woke up – and he wasn’t going to let any setbacks stop him.

That Sid was not going to let one lousy day keep him down.

That Sid, in those few seconds, represented the type of attitude that gets the job done.

That Sid is the Sid that inspires me.

In my moment of clarity, it really hit home for me just how harmful making excuses is.  In that moment I realized a few lessons:

Lesson #1 Nobody Is Helped When You Make Excuses

As I was writing, I realized – nobody writes or reads what’s in my  journal except me. Nobody cares about accomplishing my goals as much as me. And when I make excuses that let me off the hook, the person it hurts the most is me.

You’ve got to own the things that happen in your life, right or wrong – and not make excuses for them. This leads to the second lesson…

Lesson #2 Making Excuses Lets You Avoid Responsibility

An excuse is just a short cut for why things didn’t pan out. Often if I dig deeper, I find that my excuses are just my way of shirking responsibility. Common ways I do this include using excuses to deflect blame, or by making excuses that allow me to shift attention away from the root cause of what went wrong.

Only by really owning the reasons things failed, and owning where we fell short, are we able to correct our mistakes long term.  Making excuses may temporarily let you avoid responsibility, but it also denies you the opportunity to learn and grow from your temporary failure.

Lesson #3 Excuses Disrespect Your Hard Work

This was perhaps the lesson that hit home hardest for me.  Whether I fail or succeed, I should own up to being in charge of the situation.  When we make excuses for our failures, it disrespects the hard work we’ve put in to even get to the point where we failed.

If we make excuses and claim that the reason we failed wasn’t out fault – then what hope do we have of succeeding in the future? On the other hand, if we own up to why we failed, we not only recognize the hard work we put in to get to that point – we can look forward to correcting the situation and perhaps we will succeed as we go forward.

You Work Too Damn Hard To Make Excuses

“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”
– Edward R. Murrow

Everytime I see that page in my journal, I relive that moment and I remind myself – if in the middle of all the chaos in my life, in the middle of all the things that weren’t going my way – if I could stand up and in those seconds remind myself to stop making excuses …

Then I can certainly stop making excuses today.

Because you know what?

I work too damn hard to make excuses.  And so do you.

The Courage To Follow Your Dreams - One of my favorite ass-kickers, Jonathan Mead has a great discussion, and a real wake up call to help you get over your own excuses standing in the way of achieving your dreams.  He may be taking it down very soon, so go now to check the free seminar recording out here, before he does (just enter your email address) – The Courage To Follow Your Dreams.