Results and excuses don’t go hand in hand. You will understand it if you read this post.
My work-life experiences on results and excuses
I remember still now how one of my colleagues used to reply to our Head of Department in production meetings held daily. He used to ask my colleague, “How much can you finish the castings today?” Instead of replying directly, he would say like this, “Today, We faced many breakdowns. The shot blasting machine broke down for one hour, wheel abrader for two hours, magnet crane for one hour. So we could not produce more than 2 tonnes today”.
To be sure, then the Head of the Department would lose his temper and say, “Why are you giving such excuses? I just wanted to know the tonnage from you. Why don’t you tell two tonnes? Why are you giving so many excuses.” It would happen daily. My colleague would reply like that only.
How do I analyze the incident
Then, I could not make out why our head of the department lost his temper. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have much experience. I now understand it. They say the older you get, the wiser you become. So I know what this quote means.
You can have the results you want, or you can have excuses. You can’t have both.”
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The above quote shows that when you can not give results, then you make excuses as my colleague did.
What life you live depends on the choices you make. You have two options. Either you give results, or you give excuses. What do you want to choose now?
When you go for results and when you go for excuses
If you are proactive, you go for results. When you are reactive, you give excuses. Once you become skilled enough to give reasons, you can never succeed. Why so? You will make yourself so busy finding faults that you can not find opportunities where you can give results.
God has gifted us with a unique response mechanism. Why and how is it unique? It makes us different from any other animal. But how? Its uniqueness gives us space between stimulus and response. This space is our freedom to choose. What to choose? We can choose to give a proactive response or a reactive response. Those who do not use this space are reactive like animals. If you kick a street dog with your leg, what will happen? Its reaction is either it bites your leg, or it barks at you because it finds no space and reacts at once.
Those who pause for a moment, think a while, and then respond are proactive. In other words, they find the space; they find their responsibility, not their excuse. Why so? They make themselves so busy taking responsibilities that they don’t find time to find faults or reasons. The result is they are proactive, responsible, and hence give results. You can read here how we respond to shapes our life.
Conclusion on results and excuses
To put it differently, once you don’t give excuses, you take responsibility. So you give results. When you give reasons, you blame things or others. So you don’t give results in the end. Simply put, you can not have the results and excuses together.
So results and excuses don’t go hand in hand. Let’s give results, not excuses.