7 Excuses We Use To Cover Up Failure

Molly Cain Contributor

culled from:http://www.forbes.com
Does the name Maria Kang ring a bell to you? She’s the sexy mom who recently posted a picture of herself in workout gear with her three boys sitting around her. Emblazoned at the top were the words, “What’s your excuse?”
The obvious message sat around Maria, as the picture clearly showed three miniature time and attention-needing excuses that would easily explain why she wasn’t in shape. But she was in shape. Many applauded Maria for crafting those abs while still managing to juggle motherhood and a career. Others turned into a large mob on the interwebs, calling Maria a bully and accused her of fat-shaming (Fat-shaming? That’s a thing?).
Regardless of where you stand in this discussion, it brings to light something very important. Excuses are common. So common, in fact, Maria’s image lit a fire under a lot of people…she hit a nerve. We hate to be reminded that our excuses are explaining away laziness, failure, giving up and self-doubt. They’re there when we need them and we reach to them far too often. Our excuses drive us to failure because they let us take the easy way out.
We all have things we could blame for derailing us in life. It’s only when you identify the excuses you’re using in life that you can really get ahead. Are you using any of these 7 excuses today?
This is as good as I can do. Earlier this year I competed in an obstacle course challenge that really ate my lunch (a term I also use to describe the days back when a bully regularly did steal my lunch). In order to qualify, we had to complete four laps through this hellish course. At the end of the course, we were to slide down this giant slide, then break into a full run to make it to the finish line. On my fourth run through the course, the exhaustion nearly took over as I came down the slide.
In my head, I took a break and told myself, “This is seriously as good as I can do.” At that moment, I wanted to throw-up, lie down face first in the grass, cry…there were many good options at that point, but none of them included running to the finish line.
It was right then that someone ran up to me and said, “You’ve got this. Here, I’ll run with you.” And he did. And I finished.
If you’re using the “this is as good as I can do” excuse on something, it’s a sign you’re hitting an exhaustion point. Is the weight not coming off as fast as you would like? Do you feel like your work isn’t getting noticed? Are you interviewing constantly but never getting the job? Are you struggling with a relationship?
This excuse is all about your breaking point. At least the breaking point you think you have. When you catch yourself using this excuse, instead figure out what kind of encouragement or push you need to get to the finish line. Once you have that, you’re golden.
I suck. You’ve got a big goal in mind. Perhaps it’s reaching a certain salary by a certain age. Or reaching a certain social status by a certain age (I’ve celebrated a few 29^th birthdays, I know how that works). Maybe you have an ideal number for the scale.
This excuse sneaks in when you feel failure from not reaching a goal or when you don’t get what you’ve been fairy tale wishing for after so long. This is your way of saying, “Well that’s ok, I wasn’t destined for that anyways because I suck.” Well that’s just stupid. You don’t suck, you just aren’t there yet.
While failure is indeed a sign you need to change something up in the equation, it’s not a sign that you’re not any good at what you’re doing. It could be a sign you’re on the right track but aren’t ready for it yet, just made a bad decision or you just flat lost sight of your goal.
Always remember that people who never fail are people who never try. But people who stop after their first failure will never succeed. The next time you feel a setback, I allot you one or two days to excuse yourself and feel like you suck. Then you must make some adjustments and try again.
This sucks. For the past month, I’ve been keeping track of how many times I complain in a day. To do that, I’m following the instructions in a book called “A Complaint Free World.” Each time I catch myself doing any of the above, I move a bracelet from one wrist to the other. This forces me to physically identify the moments where I begin to complain. What I’ve learned? That I complain a lot. And that I tend to direct my complaints toward traffic, food, to-do’s…ok fine, it seems I’m an equal-opportunity complainer.

After analyzing my own and being more aware of what I’m hearing around me. It seems complaints, gossip and criticisms are just excuses cloaked in negativity. And in many cases, they’re simply reasons to see the negative side of things and remain unhappy.

Complaints issued to people who can’t fix the thing you’re complaining about won’t improve the situation. In fact (and you know this), it often riles you up even more, or it drives a group of people to become negative along with you or it sends you into isolation because people are avoiding you. These kinds of excuses obviously have very bad effects. Namely, you’re not at the top of your game, and you fail.

Does the name Maria Kang ring a bell to you? She’s the sexy mom who recently posted a picture of herself in workout gear with her three boys sitting around her. Emblazoned at the top were the words, “What’s your excuse?”
The obvious message sat around Maria, as the picture clearly showed three miniature time and attention-needing excuses that would easily explain why she wasn’t in shape. But she was in shape. Many applauded Maria for crafting those abs while still managing to juggle motherhood and a career. Others turned into a large mob on the interwebs, calling Maria a bully and accused her of fat-shaming (Fat-shaming? That’s a thing?).
Regardless of where you stand in this discussion, it brings to light something very important. Excuses are common. So common, in fact, Maria’s image lit a fire under a lot of people…she hit a nerve. We hate to be reminded that our excuses are explaining away laziness, failure, giving up and self-doubt. They’re there when we need them and we reach to them far too often. Our excuses drive us to failure because they let us take the easy way out.
We all have things we could blame for derailing us in life. It’s only when you identify the excuses you’re using in life that you can really get ahead. Are you using any of these 7 excuses today?
This is as good as I can do. Earlier this year I competed in an obstacle course challenge that really ate my lunch (a term I also use to describe the days back when a bully regularly did steal my lunch). In order to qualify, we had to complete four laps through this hellish course. At the end of the course, we were to slide down this giant slide, then break into a full run to make it to the finish line. On my fourth run through the course, the exhaustion nearly took over as I came down the slide.
In my head, I took a break and told myself, “This is seriously as good as I can do.” At that moment, I wanted to throw-up, lie down face first in the grass, cry…there were many good options at that point, but none of them included running to the finish line.
It was right then that someone ran up to me and said, “You’ve got this. Here, I’ll run with you.” And he did. And I finished.
If you’re using the “this is as good as I can do” excuse on something, it’s a sign you’re hitting an exhaustion point. Is the weight not coming off as fast as you would like? Do you feel like your work isn’t getting noticed? Are you interviewing constantly but never getting the job? Are you struggling with a relationship?
This excuse is all about your breaking point. At least the breaking point you think you have. When you catch yourself using this excuse, instead figure out what kind of encouragement or push you need to get to the finish line. Once you have that, you’re golden.
I suck. You’ve got a big goal in mind. Perhaps it’s reaching a certain salary by a certain age. Or reaching a certain social status by a certain age (I’ve celebrated a few 29^th birthdays, I know how that works). Maybe you have an ideal number for the scale.
This excuse sneaks in when you feel failure from not reaching a goal or when you don’t get what you’ve been fairy tale wishing for after so long. This is your way of saying, “Well that’s ok, I wasn’t destined for that anyways because I suck.” Well that’s just stupid. You don’t suck, you just aren’t there yet.
While failure is indeed a sign you need to change something up in the equation, it’s not a sign that you’re not any good at what you’re doing. It could be a sign you’re on the right track but aren’t ready for it yet, just made a bad decision or you just flat lost sight of your goal.
Always remember that people who never fail are people who never try. But people who stop after their first failure will never succeed. The next time you feel a setback, I allot you one or two days to excuse yourself and feel like you suck. Then you must make some adjustments and try again.
This sucks. For the past month, I’ve been keeping track of how many times I complain in a day. To do that, I’m following the instructions in a book called “A Complaint Free World.” Each time I catch myself doing any of the above, I move a bracelet from one wrist to the other. This forces me to physically identify the moments where I begin to complain. What I’ve learned? That I complain a lot. And that I tend to direct my complaints toward traffic, food, to-do’s…ok fine, it seems I’m an equal-opportunity complainer.

After analyzing my own and being more aware of what I’m hearing around me. It seems complaints, gossip and criticisms are just excuses cloaked in negativity. And in many cases, they’re simply reasons to see the negative side of things and remain unhappy.

Complaints issued to people who can’t fix the thing you’re complaining about won’t improve the situation. In fact (and you know this), it often riles you up even more, or it drives a group of people to become negative along with you or it sends you into isolation because people are avoiding you. These kinds of excuses obviously have very bad effects. Namely, you’re not at the top of your game, and you fail.