Excuses Why People Make Them

Let us look into some reasons behind the excuses people make; here is how one writer described excuse-making. “Excuses are rationalizations we make to ourselves about people, events, and circumstances. They are invented reasons we create to defend our behavior, to postpone taking action or simply as a means of neglecting responsibility.“

Excuses are mainly a means of placing the blame of an internal problem on an external condition, I think you can see that the above definition captures the characteristics of excuse-making.

Why do people make excuses? Or is there anyone among us who will exonerate himself or herself from making excuses at any point? If there is please raise up your hands to be identified? Lol.  Wow, I saw no hands up lol. That shows that all of us make excuses from time to time. Why Honesty Matters Anytime

Since that is the case, in this very short article I want to highlight some of the reasons why some people make excuses. Please bear with me here I will not waste your time on this one, if you have been reading some of my posts you will notice that some of the posts are often lengthy and wordy; unless you’re ready to make me believe otherwise. But gradually, I’m beginning to write concisely and hopes to get better soon.

I remember during my college years, my lecturers always commend my creative thoughts, and ideas, but always cautioned me for being wordy. For instance, If the instruction is to write a 2-page reaction paper on any topic,  I will end up writing a 4-page reaction- paper.

It has become a habit, is it because I didn’t attend any Grammar school at a young age? Lol.  I’m sorry, I just realized that I’m making excuses here! Let me continue and see if I can be able to wrap up this within a thousand words at least. Which means a few short paragraphs. Ok, let’s talk about reasons for excuses now.

Some Reasons Why People Make Excuses

• People make excuses because they consider excuses as escapism; yes many do.

• Making excuses allow people, young or old, rich or poor to preserve their self-image.

• Giving excuses helps to distract the minds from thinking about one’s inadequacies, failures, disappointments, and fears, and so forth.

• Making excuses helps to maintain relationships with friends, family members, co-workers, children, customers, debtors, mostly when there is a foul-up. Anything can be an excuse for people, and our teenage children know how to play this game with parents so well.

• People make excuses to cover up mistakes, forgetting that everyone makes a mistake, and that mistake should be seen as part of learning and improving in our experience.

• Many People also make excuses when they fail to plan their lives on time, or plan their days, and weeks as to live and work according to their set goals.

• Fear of taking risks. This one, really wanted to hold me back from stepping out of my comfort zone for many years. We make excuses when we are afraid of taking risks.

• When a person looks at himself in the mirror and feels and concludes that there’s no need for change.
• People give excuses, when they don’t listen to constructive criticisms or feedback from friends and family members. I understand that critics are not always right, but it is better to have an open mind sometimes, to listen even if you don’t agree.
• Getting feedback about your life, business, work, etc., is not going to hurt. Take, for instance, a worker or even self-employed who is at a dead-end with his job or business, and the signs of frustrations, stagnation, and loss of motivation seems visible, but still, the person refuses to acknowledge the signs to seek for change, because he or she won’t want to be seen as a failure or quitter.

4 Ways To Avoid Making Excuses

1. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes, because every one of us makes mistakes even President Trump.

• Do not intentionally create excuses, using time, age, money, background, gender, education to build up excuses, does not produce any result for you. We all have our life stories, some ugly and some sweet. Our goal in life is to be better, to learn and grow, and live a purposeful life.

• Take a timely action towards change. Because a stitch in time saves nine as the saying goes. Also, we say that prevention is better than cure right?  We can still learn from the COVID-19, about the importance of timely intervention.

• Learn to take your job, business, relationships seriously, by appreciating your accomplishments, enjoying them when you can, and appreciate the people in your life that have helped you to accomplish some of your goals so far. Don’t wait until it is too late.

4 Negative Effects of Making Excuses

1 Making excuses lead to guilt. If you’re like me, that’s how I feel whenever I catch myself making some kinds of excuses why things are not done, or why I did something that didn’t turn the way hoped for.

1. Making excuses can lead to false contentment. By that I mean, it can make one just feel contented even when the person is not making progress in his or her life. Remember, that excuse is used as a tool for escapism.

•  It leads people to take a short cut, a road of least resistance, taking the will to follow the rules or do things the right way and wait for the expected result. That’s why the internet is filled with scammers. Because they want to follow the part of less resistance, they don’t want to queue up. They want to get it today and lose it tomorrow, I call that bad success.

The inability to leave the past behind. Whatever be the memory we carry about our past, good or bad, it has the power to tie our feet behind or push us forward if.

Past memories can infuse our lives with hope and, courage and self-confidence or bind us to defeat and regrets. The best we can do is to celebrate both the big and small achievements and keep going.

 We should not allow the past memories of pains, loss, grief, slavery, disappointments, failures, to hinder us from winning the game of life or from running the race that is set before us. Because no matter the excuses we present, deep down in every man’s or woman’s desire is to be happy, successful, fulfilled in life.

Never be like the patient that confessed to a Psychiatrist, that  “it is easier to lie on a couch digging into the past than it is to sit on a chair facing the present”.

Thanks for your time and patience. As always, leave me your general comment, opinion, and insights.

Let’s wrap it up here guys.  I failed again to keep to my promise of making this brief.

As always,  leave your comments, opinions, ideas, and excuses. Let us learn to motivate one another for good work.