I actually ran across a website yesterday called “The Mother of All Excuses” (No, I wasn’t looking for one). It exists so people can share excuses they’ve used and so others can read them and take advantage of them. There are literally thousands of excuses for being late to work, missing work, cutting class, cheating on diets, being pulled over and on and on and on.
I think “admitting mistakes and taking responsibility” is a major value missing far too often in today’s leadership culture. Sometimes I get weary with my own excuses for why something happened.
The truth is sometimes I…
Made the wrong hire.
Had bad timing.
Thought I heard from God and clearly didn’t.
Talked when I should have been listening.
Jumped the gun when I should have been patient.
Wimped out when I should have moved forward.
I made a mistake. I screwed up. Maybe it was sin, lack of experience, wrong motives, or plain stupidity. But it was a mistake. I own it.
Do yourself and the people around you a favor today and stop with all the excuses. Owning it and not excusing it is the key to building credibility with your spouse, kids, friends and people you lead.
Any mistakes you need to own today?
How about a favorite excuse?
I should have been honest instead of hedging the truth!!
This so true Pete! There are so many times I make excuses for my behavior instead of owning it. I own the fact they I may have took on too much at one time and have not been reading God’s word as often as I want to.
I’m with you Sarah!!
There is always mistakes I hace tried to avoid to admit. It’s a shame, I know. But there’s always that daily moment I hit the ground with my knees and I can’t hide anymore. God really knows me… and STILL LOVE ME! But He never say: Go ahead, keep doing the same thing.
His love moves my soul to fight and change.
Thanks for this great post. A great morning lesson to me!
Blessings.
First let me say that my vivid imagination makes me a high-quality excuse factory, and my personal battle with excuse making has been a hard fought one. My personal battle was helped by an personal experience. Early in my professional career, I met with a powerful texas business man on a project my company was contracted for. We were two weeks behind schedule and he flew in to Phoenix to speak with us. For whatever reason, I was selected to meet with him. I immediately started running through a list of excuses (probably legitimate) as to why the project was behind. He cut me off in mid-sentence and looked me coldly in the eye and with a directness that only Texans have, and said, “I don’t want to hear problems, I only want to hear solutions.” That moment altered my life. I suddenly realized that excuse making took so much energy and left me lingering in the failure. Since that day, I fight a constant battle with wanting to offer a “good” excuse instead of owning the failure/error and directing the energy at a solution. Since that time, I have been affirmed over and over again in my experience, people who make excuses are worse to work with than those who simply make mistakes. I like to keep that mirror up to help me fight my natural tendency to make excuses.
a lesson taken and well-learned!
Good stuff PJ.
This lands in so many places.
I can’t say where this mentality started per se but a lot of folks play the victim card. Fingers pointed anywhere but themselves. It’s always someone else’s fault. But if people actually took responsibility for their life and choices, then the ripple effect would be huge. It is hard admitting you are wrong when there are a lot of people watching….and the devil has a lot of fun with that.
To paraphrase a military saying, “Excuses are like elbows, everyone has a couple.” They’ve been around since Adam’s “The woman You gave me…” First John One Nine does not, however, command us to confess our “excuses”…
So true.
Accountability for our personal actions will increase our credibility in the eyes of others. We need to be responsible and be the example, change and difference in this world. Thanks Pete!
Eve’s “the devil made me do it” is still a huge favorite; and Adam’s “the woman made me do it” is… oh, wait. That’s not an excuse, that’s reality.
ha ha ha ha…
“I run on ‘lindy-time’”
I most often leave the house exactly at the time I need to be somewhere, somehow thinking my car is a “beam me up scotty-car”… so I am always late. Friends and children know to give me the wrong time, about 15 minutes early. For example, I meet regularly for pray from 7 am-8 and I usually arrive at 7:10… today it was moved to 7:30 am – 8:30 and I arrived at 7:40… go figure.
I can tell you where this all started for people.
Just like my 4 year old son who just learned to spell and wrote his 2 year old sisters name on the wall in crayon and blamed it on her.
It started at birth!!!!
A favorite excuse. One I hear a lot is that “I”m waiting on God.” Translated means I’m going to do nothing. I think too often we use that as a cop out not to pray and not to work on things that we need to work on.
Ouch. I may or may not have used that one from time to time.
I thought it was okay to share with that person because “I needed someone” when really, honestly, it was just convenient and I wanted to vent. I should have waited.
I was late to work today because I wasted time this morning. I wanted to blame the construction workers that forced me to detour, but I was late already. It’s also not their fault if I’m in a bad mood (also related to running late).
Side note: you may want to put a disclaimer about that website – it’s heavily pushing online gambling. I thought about forwarding your post but have friends struggling w/gambling, so I hesitated.
It is extremely hard to not make an excuse or at least gloss something over. Back when my hubby didn’t have much rank in the Air Force, therefore money was tight, I had saved up to attend a Christian conference with a friend. The hotel we had booked online ended up a drug dealers’ haven, so we prayed for faith and finances and took a room at the conference’s hotel. DOUBLE the price. She also didn’t have extra money, she said. I had to put the hotel charge on MY debit card and PRAY we didn’t overdraw our account.
That evening she was walking around the book table and actually bought a book! I was a bit upset since I just put my family’s finances on the line so WE could stay at this hotel. Well, she called me on my changed attitude. So, I sucked it up and was honest saying I didn’t agree with her buying a book when she couldn’t pay me for half the room. She told all the other people from our church who were at this conference. I felt so ostrisized, HOWEVER, at the same time, I felt so clean because I didn’t pretend it was something else – i.e. lie. We moved on, and when we got home and she tried to pay me back, I wouldn’t cash the check. I told her she might as well spend that money becaue the check was in the trash.
See, I couldn’t just “speak” honestly, I had to do something to back it up. I was “honest” with her so that I could judge her – I didn’t use honesty as an excuse for ugliness. Just the opposite, I hated the honest truth, but it was the truth and I needed to CONFESS it. And I needed to back it up. When I got home I told my husband what happened. And we made sure we could afford to not take her money – which God made sure of.
It really is important NOT to make excuses.
****”I WASN;T honest with her so I could judge her”… UGH! I hate typos!! It takes on a whole new meaning if I leave it as “was”.