Excuses are something that all of us have indulged in from time to time. Indeed such is their popularity that there's a website devoted to some humdinger's if you want to bunk off work.
As we get older our excuses tend to have more serious repurcussions. We mess up on a project or forget our partners birthday. Serious stuff and owning up to things means admitting that we've messed up, and no one really likes to do that, so we try and make up excuses to wiggle our way out of it.
Sometimes we try and get our excuse in early by just not trying to begin with. It's a form of self-handicap. Researchers identified the main forms, including:
- procrastination
- lack of effort
- distracting ourselves
Take lack of effort for instance. If you succeed anyway you look like one of those fortunate geniuses that don't need to try to be great. If you fail you can console yourself that you weren't really bothered anyway. Win-win. Such tactics are often used by people with high self-esteem because they can't cope with the idea of failure so get their excuses in early.
Making excuses before hand is bad enough because you fail to give yourself the best chance of success, but research suggests that explaining away your failure after the event is considerably more dangerous.
The researchers found that whilst making excuses shielded the failures from blows to their self-esteem, it had the knock on effect of reducing their motivation to prepare properly for future tasks.
Excuses tend to differ from realistic explanations in a few ways:
- Excuses blame others for our own failures
- They make rubbish outcomes seem better in comparison
- They lower our expectations for the future
Interesting, especially the bit about confident people often not trying so that they have an excuse all lined up should they fail. I've certainly known a few people that employ that tactic.
Culture's definitely a big part of it too. There are plenty of people who won't even attempt something for fear of failing so they have an exceptional (and mediocre) work record. It seems the most successful people (particularly entrepreneurs) have experienced adversity, disappointment and / or difficulty very early in their lives; learn to cope with it and don't fear failure as they grow older.
Excuses are a convenient cover for those scared to try.
Love the 3 simple truths at the end too! It reminds me of Covey's "learning to live with" principle (I'm paraphrasing) – acceptance of yourself and others is a great foundation for progress. Accept who you are and what you're good at etc.
That's right Colin. As I get older it seems that the biggest single thing that defines us as human beings is our attitude to failure and how we respond to adversity.
In terms of 'culture', just wanted to say that I overcame my fear of writing stuff online thank to a vibrant and accepting community that you fostered on the CMI, so having 'mentors' and friends is a great way of overcoming that fear.
Thanks Colin, very nice of you to say so.