It is normally
observed that despite being capable enough many people fail to achieve even
normal successes in their lives due to their habit of making excuses, mostly
lame excuses. Wise people say that this is one of the most common habits found
in a person facing regular failures. These people always have one excuse or the
other for not doing the assigned task or keeping it incomplete or not
fulfilling the promise whether it is in the workplace or at home. The most
common excuses are like sudden indisposition, unfavourable circumstances,
inadequate logistic support, road accident, traffic jam or something like that.
Generally, the parents or teachers or superiors advise or scold or punish them
and let them go with the warning that they should desist from making such
excuses in future to cover up their failures or wrong doings. Is the habit of
making excuses normal and it should be dealt with softly? Not at all. Rather it
is a serious matter which not only affects the person concerned but also the
persons around them and the society they live in. Let us discuss the five major
consequences of this habit.
1. Lie Dependence: Making excuses clearly means trying to hide the
truth by telling a lie. And to hide one lie, they tell another lie and finally
get trapped in the lie web sooner or later. Notwithstanding, some people
indulge in such activity to prove himself right, mostly temporarily. In fact,
instead of accepting the reality and facing smaller inconveniences or
discomforts or punishments, by default they set in the painful process to face
severe consequences afterwards.
2. Avoid making
right efforts: Making excuses
and that too lame and silly excuses clearly indicate that you are shying away
from making the right efforts which you are otherwise capable of. You continue
to do this despite knowing well that without taking requisite efforts you can’t
achieve the expected results. James Penny rightly says that I don’t believe in
making excuses. I know that only by taking the sincerest efforts, I can find
the suitable solution for any problem in my life.
3. Low
self-confidence: This habit proves
fatal as you slowly keep on pending even important and urgent tasks. To say, if
you make excuses for not completing the task, you continue to pile up the
backlog which gets heavier with every passing day. Once this negative trend
sets in, naturally you find the backlog quite impossible to finish by any
means. Now in anticipation or fear of getting caught by the supervisor or
parents, you feel stressed and your confidence too goes down significantly.
Quality of work deteriorates and fear factor takes its toll. Just think, if you
are low in confidence, how can you finish any task - big or small successfully
and on time? Benjamin Franklin says that he who is good for making excuses is
seldom good for anything else.
4. Crisis of
credibility: One big negative
effect of making excuses is the crisis of credibility. It takes years to be
credible, but it shatters within no time due to your habit of making excuses
followed by constant lying. Doing anything wrong or committing a mistake
knowingly or unknowingly is not a big crime, if you accept it openly at the
first instance. Normally your boss-teacher-senior-parents forgive you with a
warning that you should be very particular in not repeating the same mistake
and be sincere towards your work. But it can’t be the case with those who make
excuses to present himself clean and continue to commit blunders repeatedly.
They seldom get a relief and are normally blacklisted. Truly speaking, nobody
believes such people and hence they rarely get any chance to shoulder any
important responsibility.
As always, I'm keen to know what you think on this subject. Hence, I request you to post your comments to share your valuable opinion. (hellomilansinha@gmail.com)
# Published in my Sunday Column of "Morning India" daily.
