Is It a Real Reason,
or an Excuse?
The excuses that hold people for years are not the false ones. They are the completely accurate ones, and being right about why you are stuck does not move you.
Most writing about excuses assumes people are making things up. That is almost never what is happening.
The reasons people give are usually true. The market really did shift. The schedule really is full. You really are the one holding everything together at home right now. That is exactly what makes them so durable, because a false reason falls apart the moment you look at it and a true one holds up for a decade.
So true is not the useful test. Plenty of accurate statements are also excuses, and plenty of accurate statements are genuine walls. The question worth asking is narrower.
Does this reason remove the option, or does it only make it harder?
Those two feel identical when you say them out loud. They are not remotely the same thing, and telling them apart is most of the work.
Eight statements
Hold one specific thing in mind, and the reason you usually give for why it has not happened. Answer about that reason.
If this reason disappeared tomorrow, I could start immediately with nothing else changing.
Anyone in my exact situation would hit the same wall, no matter how badly they wanted it.
It involves something outside my control with a defined end, like a contract, a treatment, or a season of caring for someone.
Acting anyway would cause real harm to someone who depends on me, not just discomfort for me.
My reason explains why this is hard rather than why it is impossible.
I can think of at least one person who had my reason and did it anyway.
This reason has been true for years and I have never once tested it.
If I am honest, the reason is doing a job for me. It saves me from finding out.
The difference in one line
A real constraint
It removes the option rather than raising the price.
It usually has an end, a shape, and a cost that lands on somebody other than you.
The answer is to honor it, and to prepare inside it rather than pretending it is not there.
A true excuse
It is accurate and it does not actually close the door.
It explains the difficulty and gets treated as though it explained the impossibility.
The answer is to stop being right about it and do something small anyway.
The clearest test is the first statement in the list. If the reason vanished overnight, would you start tomorrow? If the honest answer is no, and other things would still need to change, then the reason you have been giving is not the thing actually stopping you. It has been standing in for something you have not named yet.
The second test is whether you have ever checked. A real constraint gets tested, because people push on walls they genuinely need to move. A reason that has sat unexamined for years is usually being protected rather than believed.
Worth saying plainly, because this idea gets used carelessly. Some constraints are completely real. Caring for someone who needs you, a health situation, a financial floor you cannot go below, a season where somebody else is depending on your stability. Naming one of those is not weakness and pushing through it is not courage. The point of this page is not that every reason is an excuse. It is that most people have never actually checked which kind they have.
Common questions
What is the difference between a reason and an excuse?
Not truth, which is what most people assume. Both are usually true. The difference is whether it removes your options or only raises the cost. A reason closes the door. An excuse explains why the door is heavy and then gets treated as though it were locked.
What if my reason is genuinely true?
It probably is. That is what makes this hard rather than easy. You can be completely correct about why you are where you are and still be there, because being right and moving forward turn out to be unrelated activities. Taking ownership is the trade where you give up being right in exchange for being able to act.
How do I know if I am making excuses?
Write down every real reason things are the way they are. Then circle only the ones you could act on this week. Whatever is left uncircled is accurate and irrelevant, and the size of that uncircled list is usually the answer to the question. For the habit itself, How to Stop Making Excuses walks through seven steps.
Where to go from here
If it came back as a real constraint, honor it and put a review date on it. The risk with genuine constraints is not that people ignore them. It is that a true limit from three years ago quietly becomes a permanent description of your life without anyone checking whether it still applies.
If it came back as a true excuse, nothing about the reason needs to change. It can stay accurate. What changes is that you stop letting an accurate statement function as a decision, and take ownership of the part that is yours instead.
Underneath most durable excuses is something simpler and less comfortable, which is not wanting to find out. That is fear of failure doing its work quietly and respectably. Test the reason once, in the smallest way available, and you usually discover you were capable of more than the reason suggested.
Where is comfort quietly making your decisions for you?
The comfort ceiling rarely shows up as a dramatic moment. It looks like hesitation, a conversation you keep postponing, and routines that feel safe but no longer ask anything of you.
Twenty five statements across five areas of your life. About five minutes. You will see your score, your five areas ranked against each other, and a clear read on where your biggest opportunity is sitting right now.
When I’ve got something worth sending.
Just a story or an idea I picked up that I think will help you.
Sometimes that’s twice in a month. Sometimes it’s not for a while.