Excusitis is a disease, how do we combat it?

“Ninety-nine per cent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” - George Washington Carver

Excusitis can be referred to as a mental disease of making excuses. Yes, this is nothing less than mental disease. As humans, we are fantastic in using our capabilities to hurl lame excuses. We usually have an excuse ready when things don’t happen our way or when we do not act the way others expect. 

The casket of excuses usually starts to unbolt the moment we wake up. We might have an excuse for not going on a walk today. Then while reaching the office, we use all our innovative skills to fling an excuse for punching in late. We are so smart that we can think of an excuse in the wink of an eye while parking our vehicle in the office parking or while getting off the cab.

When we are called to explain why we left home yesterday without completing the work, we whisk in an emotional touch to the excuse that we already wove while leaving for home the last day. Probably, the senior might not have thought of such an out of the box excuse in the wildest of his dreams! When we are asked about the progress of today’s work, we raise our thumb assuring that the ‘train is running on time, although we might be still struggling to complete yesterday’s pendency. 

Upon reaching home, when we are asked if we have bought the grocery while returning from the office, we, often while taking off our socks, exclaim in a broken voice, ‘today was a very grilling day, I am burned-out’.

In the next minute, if we receive a call from some of our friend informing that he is throwing a party, we feel as fresh and cool as a cucumber ready to rock. Then while going to bed we again give ourselves an excuse that from tomorrow we won’t catapult any excuse but that tomorrow has not yet shown up. 

Excuses, excuses, excuses!

“He / She that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

- Benjamin Franklin

At the bottom of our hearts, we know that we are lying to ourselves and others but still, we have made this defence mechanism a part of our everyday life. Why? Because we have been bitten by the bug of Excusitis, it shoos away the problem temporarily. 

Eventually, the problem smiles at us since this is what it wants. It comes back with a battalion and shatters our life. But no problem, we have an excuse this time as well since we need to justify to others that we were not responsible. It was the devil of ill-fate, someone else, situation or even God responsible behind the bombshell. And hence we spend our whole life in mediocrity because we have been descended on earth to live this way. 

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”– George Washington

However, the truth is that we have enslaved ourselves to excuses. We are as much capable as any successful person or a millionaire but we ourselves repulse our actual destiny, which is to live the life of abundance. It’s time to take off from the excuse-land and shoot towards our cherished dreams.

Life has a treasure trove in store for us that must be beyond our imagination but for that unthinkable to happen, we need to break ourselves free from the shackle of excuses. We are a winner and “winners never give excuses even in difficult times”. 

Here are some Golden Ways to STOP Making Excuses:

ü Stop fearing the unknown

ü Take responsibility for your dreams

ü Set small and achievable goals

ü Switch your mode to ‘action’ and be consistent

ü Stop comparing yourself to others

ü Do not expect yourself to be perfect in everything

ü Believe in yourself; you have all it takes

ü Take mistakes as a teacher

ü Focus less on your weaknesses and more on strengths

Remember, this is a habit that can be changed and you undoubtedly have the ability to shove off excuses.

“People with integrity do what they say they are going to do. Others have excuses.” ―Laura Schlessinger