“For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.” – Eric Hoffer
“We are all manufacturers. Making good, making trouble, or making excuses.”- H.V Adolt
Have you every tried to consciously try to make excuses for yourself? Why not try right now. Your top 20 excuses for not being beyond where you are now? Your excuses for not having a good grade, a good job, a good relationship, a good car, great investments. Don’t procrastinate this, go ahead, take a sheet of paper and write down your excuses, good or bad, write them down.
In case you are still reading and not doing anything about it, don’t just read this, try to form excuses for yourself, don’t just think them in your head, write them down. Ok, use a small sheet of paper, grab a post it. Make sure you make the excuses about an area of life that you really desire to succeed in. Don’t think too long about whether the excuses are legit or not, just make them anyway. Make your excuses before you click on the link ahead to read the remaining part of the article. Put them all down now, all the excuses that seem remotely responsible for your current predicament.
Now that you have done that, the next step is to look at all those excuses and make excuses for them. Make excuses for your excuses, give reasons for why they will not stop you, reasons why they are insufficient. Reasons why those excuses are not good enough. Excuses are monuments of fools, they are the working tools of the incompetent, he that is wise should unlearn their use.
Every human being you know that has achieved great things had good excuses that they did not use. They looked those excuses in the eye and used them to their own advantage. So take a good look at all those excuses and make sure that none of them can stop you!
I read an article a friend wrote last year about excuses. Excuses he said come from three words
Ex – Meaning out of or former
C – The Roman numeral for 100
Uses – To put into service or apply for a purpose.
Put all that together and you have Excuses – Out of 100% use. It means your excuses are real when you are out of 100% use, you can’t rise up to the totality of who you are and still have room for excuses. You need to see yourself in 100% form! Whatever excuse you have, someone has overcome worse before, stop pampering yourself, step up!
Sylvester Stallone could have said, “half my face is paralyzed, I don’t want to be seen in public”, he could also have said, “I’m broke and my wife is pregnant, any money ($300,000) is good money to sell the film I wrote, so that someone else can act Rocky”. But he didn’t give any of those excuses, and he ended up featuring in Rocky 1 to 5 and now Rocky Balboa.
Colonel Sanders (Over 60) and Ray Kroc (Over 50) had genuine excuses in being too old to start something new. They made excuses for those excuses and the world eats from their systems, Kentucky fried Chicken and McDonald’s.
John Milton could have said he was blind and not written paradise lost, Beethoven could have said he was deaf, and not compose some of the worlds greatest symphonies, Helen Keller could have said she was deaf and blind and shut up the stuff that she was made of, Richard Branson could have made dyslexia his excuse and so on.
Nigerian Entrepreneurs can legitimately blame it on NEPA, Capital, transportation e.t.c. An average student can complain of old curriculum, lack of time, recycled courses, e.t.c. The average employee can say it’s his/her boss, can see it’s the company, the excuse can be HR, or Nigeria! But you know what? One excuse is as good as another for something you don’t want to do. Don Wider said, excuses are nails used in building a house of failure! Make your counter excuse list today and keep it near your pillow. We all have excuses, but some of us make up our mind not to use them! Which side are you?
Thanx Deolu,
I wrote a long list of valid excuses preventing a particular project from taking off. I had fun turning them to into uses. I tell you the truth, some of our excuses are really genuine. But these same excuses can become stepping stones for those who know the rules of the game of life. I learnt sometime that a challenge can ‘freeze’ you or ‘release’ you, you’ll decide.
True talk! A man is not guilty of what his birth circumstances were but will be guilty if he does not do anything to change his circumstance. Many great men are products of the “school of rising above your excuses”. All the things we enjoy in the world today were products of minds that rose above their excuses. We need to learn to challenge status quo.
A nice one there ‘Deolu.
I tried it and I found out that there aint no excuse at all!!!
I’ll say it reminded me of the early days in my secondary (that’s some time ago boy!), when our devoted Mathematics teacher used to tell us – “a negative number multiplied by the same will give you a positive one.” I also remember that a lot guys failed to catch up on this, quickly.
You know, it’s like using the same artillery an opposition is using against them. Quite unfathomable, but it’s the truth. Until we begin to make excuses for our excuses not to be longer excused, we ain’t goin nowhere. Let’s begin to pay these excuses back in their own coin.
I enjoyed doing this – there is no stopping me!
definitely there is no excuse strong enough to stop any pursuit that is absolutely pursued!
I realized from the exercise that the excuse I made for my excuses were actually most times more valid and stronger than the original excuse itself.
Nice one Sir.
This reminds me of ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’. Really, there are reasons why we should siddon look but aren’t there reasons too not to siddon look? Either way, either we decide to do or to allow excuses gain ground, we’re right.
Well, someone who wants to happen will definitely not yield to the lure of excuses.
For me, it’s definitely ‘no excuses’.
Thanks Deolu
Man, this site is way too rich and inspirational.
This is truly inspirational. In the end, we all have to rise above all our excuses and choose to excel.
Interesting website!
Goin through this now , i feel so ashamed of myself now cos its as if excuses follow everythg I do and thats 1 sincere thing I do that I really hate.Thanks Deolu cos Im on the side that wants to throw all excuses away and never make 1 again….GodBless.
deolu, this generation will not forget you. however, be more visible please. people should know a great mind like this/l
excuses are limitations. the reason why many will not go far in life isnt because somebody is wishing them evil or because they are born at the wrong time but because they have so many reasons why they have failed.
Thomas Edison tried 999 times to invent the incandescent light bulb but was met with as many failures. he would have given as many excuses as he deemed fit but no him, it was his 10,000 times that he finally made it.
it is imporatant to note that we can do virtually anything if we can belief and take effective actions and most imporatntly, never quit even after any loos.