3 Tips For Separating Excuses From Reasons

What’s the difference between an excuse and a reason? You don’t want to be the kind of person that’s unable to sympathize with any problem that you haven’t encountered yourself and assume that everybody else is simply offering excuses. You also don’t want to be a sniveling disappointment. Your entire life will become much better once you are able to tell a reason from an excuse. In the next few paragraphs, you will find information to help you distinguish an excuse from a reason.

You will first learn what happens if you blame people too much. Next, you will learn what could happen when you view excuses as if they were reasons. Finally, you will learn the difference between an excuse and a reason. After reading this, you will understand the difference between an excuse and a reason, allowing you to improve your life.

        1. You End Up Blaming People Too Much

If you think of reasons as excuses, you will find yourself blaming people a little too much while, at the same time, expecting too much from them. For instance, you might be a jerk to a service employee. You might assume that oppression is nonexistent since you have never faced it or found a unique solution.

You might be beating yourself up about the smallest of mistakes since you regularly compare yourself to perfection. You might “disrupt” an industry with a start-up that’s heavily funded, use your short-term cash flow to essentially threaten the businesses that have made long-term sustainability a priority, and watch everything crash down as you learn why “the old way” was the right way. Or you might simply offer terrible advice.

        2. You Look At Excuses Like They’re Reasons

If you look at excuses and think of them as reasons, you might be late constantly. Or you might allow people to treat you like trash. You might spend years in an unfulfilling relationship with a partner that doesn’t make you feel special since he is too busy with everything in his life except with you while all your friends gossip about it behind your back.

You might get scammed, or you could be fired. There isn’t an easy trick to tell excuses from reasons. These aren’t sharply defined, and what could be an excuse in a certain situation could be a solid reason in a different situation.

        3. The Difference Between A Reason And An Excuse

When trying to tell a reason from an excuse, there are several things that you can do. Proper research is paramount; if you don’t understand the first reason you receive, you should dig deeper and ask “why” at least five times. Always assume good faith from the other party until you absolutely have to do otherwise; it will give you room to change your mind and will leave the other party with room to change their own mind. Consider why the other party offered up an excuse. In some instances, you will instantly see their actual goal, such as attempting to save face, and you can help them do that while still getting what you need from them.

Try finding opposing motivations that make the parties disagree on whether a particular demand is reasonable. Identify shared motivations that might supersede the opposing ones and find out whether you can reframe the situation in terms of those motivations. Revisit your assumptions on a regular basis. Check with people who have experiences that are different from yours to see whether your assumptions still hold. Be ready to learn as opposed to trying to defend your previous position.

Are you able to tell the difference between a reason and an excuse? Being able to tell the difference between a reason and an excuse can help make your life significantly better. The information shared here is aimed at helping you differentiate between a reason and an excuse.

The first thing you learned was what happens if you blame people too much. Next, you learned what could happen if you looked at excuses as if they were reasons. Finally, you learned the difference between excuses and reasons. Now that you have finished reading, you know the difference between a reason and an excuse, and you can use this knowledge to better your life.