A Letter from Chris Suarez
JUST THIS ONCE
Excuses start early in life. At least they did with me.
Why isn’t my room clean?
Why is the laundry still in the dryer?
Why isn’t the trash taken out?
Why didn’t I get an A on the exam?
Why did my teacher say I distracted others with my talking?
Why are there chocolate chip cookies missing from the cookie jar?
Not only do those questions give you some insight into my childhood, but I assure you I had a reason - or more accurately an excuse - for every single one of them.
We are trained and conditioned to come up with excuses as children with the sole purpose being to avoid punishment or to avoid the consequences of the truth. Generating and crafting the excuse becomes an automatic reaction to the question. As we get older, the excuse becomes a safety mechanism for us. Of course the questions change. They get bigger, more meaningful, and more consequential.
Why didn’t we show up on time for work?
Why didn’t we do what we said we would do?
Why are we 60% behind our goal for the year?
Why do people keep on leaving me?
Why did we miss our daughter's soccer game?
Why haven’t we eaten dinner with the family this week?
And because of the increased consequence of the real answer, the excuses become more elaborate.
Some say “Why” questions are judgemental. Perhaps that’s because we feel condemned by our own excuses.
Regardless of the size or magnitude of the excuse, they have the ability to change our trajectory and direction, answer by answer. In fact, the little excuses we give to others each day, become personal truths that we accept. They lead us down a path in the opposite direction of our goals.
The excuse we used on Monday to explain why we didn’t make it into the office at our normal time, becomes the same excuse we allow ourselves to use on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday.
The excuse we used for not calling the lead back a second time, becomes the same excuse we use for not calling back the third or fourth or fifth time.
The excuse we used for not keeping to our committed schedule this week, becomes the same excuse we use for not keeping our schedule next week, or the week after, or the week after.
See, those excuses become a voice whispering to ourselves that what we do doesn’t really matter. They become permission to ourselves that whatever we do is ok. That giving 95% is just fine. Which becomes 90%. Which becomes 85%. Which becomes 80%. And before we know it, we are throwing up 70’s and 60’s.
It’s that first step down the excuse path for life’s small questions that leads to the excuses for life’s biggest questions. Often our excuses begin with the expression “just this once”. There is no such thing as “just this once”.
Just this once slides into once in a while, which evolves into usually, which crashes into every single time.
Just this once gives you permission to grow into less than the person you chose to be.
So don’t give me excuses. More importantly, don’t give YOU excuses.
Chris