🤔 Why Do We Give Excuses?

Excusitis: Derived from the word "Excuse". It is tendency/Disease/Regular behavior of making excuse for every poor performance. In simpler words, giving excuses for everything and trying to back their faults. (Urban Dictionary)

Ever wondered why do we habitually feel the need to give excuses when it comes to executing our tasks, or facing challenges and setbacks in life? 

It comes down to two reasons: Defence and Deflection.

1. DEFENCE. We give excuses as psychological defence in order to protect ourselves from discomfort of negative emotions (such as fear, low confidence, hatred, getting rebuked, looking weak or even boredom). When we have external factors to blame, it grants us a scapegoat: therefore, it gives us a false sense of comfort to pat ourselves on the back, for attributing other factors masking your own weaknesses and shortcomings. The danger of this is that it can easily lead to arrogance; by constant blaming the faults of others as excuses behind the lack of one’s success, it gives them a feeling of self-superiority. 

Interestingly, emotional protection it is also the same reason why we procrastinate (not necessarily because of laziness!). When we have to do something difficult outside of our comfort zone, if we hate our task/our job or we don’t know how to do it, we have to confront feelings of emotional discomfort: of feeling helpless, incompetence and face the possibility of failure. Hence we delay them in order to avoid these iffy feelings. But when the deadlines are near, the discomfort of failing the deadline becomes more severe: hence we rush to complete it under pressure!

2. DEFLECTION: Another big reason for giving excuses is so we can remove the accountability of taking action or getting started. When we blame the environment, the leaders, lack of support, lacking in knowledge, or that we have “poor memory/metabolism/willpower”, we surrender, succumb to defeat and we convince ourselves: What to do? 

As they say in Hokkien: “Bopien worrr” (No choice lah!). Another New Year’s resolution bites the dust. 

In tafsir ibn kathir, of surah at-taubah #94 regarding the verses of the hypocrites that attempted to give  excuses for not participating in war, ibn kathir said: “The hypocrites will swear to the believers to apologize, so that the believers turn away from them without admonishing them” 

When our excuses are accepted (e.g. by our leader, our parents, the other party, or even ourselves who set those goals or resolutions), we think that "okay I'm off the hook" and therefore are no longer responsible or accountable. 

The danger of this is that once we have arrived at that point, since we feel that we have a “justifiable excuse”, we no longer feel guilt: sometimes necessary motivational components to drive us to act. In fact, guilt is a necessary component of taubah (repentance) to rectify ourselves. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said, “النَّدَمُ تَوْبَةٌ”: The feeling of Guilt is repentance (narrated by ibnu Majah, graded hasan).

A further underlying cause refusal to change: a stubborn insistence to remain in one’s comfort zone. In her book “Mindset”, this is what author Carol Dweck defines as “the fixed mindset”. When a person is now convinced of his powerlessness to rectify the situation, he therefore uses the excuse to resist change, in order to protect himself from the feelings of 

• Vulnerability

• Weakness & shortcomings 

• Fear of the unknown – not knowing what to do next

• Inferiority from asking help from other people

The solution?

Discipline. We need to inculcate the willpower to take responsibility, own up to the situation and do the right thing confront the brutal facts, resist the temptations to give excuses, embrace our own flaws and fight through the discomfort, and move forward towards improvement. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,

الْمُؤْمِنُ الْقَوِيُّ خَيْرٌ وَأَحَبُّ إِلَى اللَّهِ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِ الضَّعِيفِ وَفِي كُلٍّ خَيْرٌ احْرِصْ عَلَى مَا يَنْفَعُكَ وَاسْتَعِنْ بِاللَّهِ وَلاَ تَعْجِزْ 

“A strong believer is better and is more lovable to Allah than a weak believer, and there is good in every believer. Strive for that which benefits you, and seek help from Allah and do not give up or lose heart” (Muslim)

“If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.”

#TheBarakahEffect