Ask Dr. Ceren: Excuses & Explanations
© 2003-2006, Sandra Levy Ceren. All Rights Reserved.

Most people find listening to an excuse annoying. Those who make excuses may be very creative in providing them. Despite the transparency of most excuses, chronic excuse makers persist in offering them.

It is easy to see through even the "best excuse. Rarely are we fooled. There are exceptions such as when we prefer the excuse to the truth which often occurs in toxic relationships.

Excuses may appear effective because the recipient, rather than argue, may shake her head affirming acceptance of the excuse, but in reality she did not.

Excuses are designed to justify your position or actions and remove you from blame.

Explanations are an innocent attempt to clarify your behavior. For instance, in response to being late for work, an excuse might be, "My alarm didn’t go off" whereas an explanation might be, "I forgot to set my alarm properly so I overslept and I’m late." Clearly, the excuse avoids responsibility, while the explanation describes and accepts responsibility.

We may make an excuse for our behavior if we expect that the truth will cast us in a negative light,.making others perceive us as incompetent or selfish, For example, if you promised your spouse you’d pick up a particular video on your way home from work and you forgot, what would you do? If you’re fearful of being attacked for being irresponsible, you may make up something such as, "All the copies were gone when I arrived." If you’re willing to take the heat for not following through, you can say something like, "I totally forgot to stop by the video store. I’m very sorry. I’ll make a memo and put in the car so I don’t forget tomorrow."

Many excuses are sprinkled with "white lies." If you resist telling the truth, ask yourself this question: "What is the worst thing that could happen if I just tell the truth instead of making an excuse?" Usually, the answer is not so bad and certainly, not as negative as being "caught in a lame excuse." People respect honesty even when they dislike the other person’s behavior.

Sometimes we turn to excuses because we’re over-committed and unable to live up to promises we make. You can reverse this negative habit by not promising, then if there is time, you can deliver.

If you are chronically late, get into the habit of leaving 15 minutes early for appointments. Re-arranging unproductive habits will allow you to meet commitments and you won’t have to make-up an excuse.

When you commit to upgrade your standards of behavior for yourself, telling the truth will become your only choice.

Excuses also flow from a fear of punishment. Some people believe they can conjure up a strong enough excuse to escape well-deserved punishment. When they escape what they deserve, it makes them feel clever. An employee risks losing a job promotion because she chooses to go on a skiing trip, rather than meet an important project deadline. On Monday morning, she states she couldn’t complete the project because her computer crashed. If her boss asks why she didn’t have the information on disk, she responds with another excuse. Excuses accumulate and like a tower built on quick sand, they eventually topple.

When we’re caught in an excuse, we feel small and ashamed. In the long run, it really is easier to tell the truth and deal with the consequences. Once we’ve accepted the consequences, we’ll be much less likely to repeat that same mistake a second time.

Consider chronic excuses as a sign of emotional immaturity. People who refuse to grow-up are people who avoid assuming responsibility for themselves. To them, excuses offer a way to blame others and to avoid personal accountability. To the immature, excuses are a way of maintaining the illusion of always "being right and beyond reproach." Since there are no perfect people, grown-ups understand and accept their mistakes as a learning experience and use them for self-improvement.

If you’re an habitual excuse maker, you may have come to believe that your excuses are justified. Over time, people often come to believe what they tell others is actually true. This phenomenon is termed "cognitive dissonance." That is, when our words and beliefs don’t match, we change them in order to resolve the internal "disconnect."

Creating excuses is both emotionally draining and personally demeaning. Your self-respect suffers, even when someone else is unaware that you’ve covered over the truth. So make a decision to switch from making excuses to making explanations.