If you asked me whether I make excuses, my first instinct would be to say no. And I’d mean it. I’ve spent my career studying accountability. I’ve written books about it. I talk about it on stages in front of thousands of people. I should be the last person making excuses.
But I do. Not as often as I used to. But I still catch myself. And if someone like me, who thinks about this every single day, still makes excuses without realizing it, what do you think is happening with everyone else?
I recently ran a survey about excuse-making, and the results really surprised me: 66% said they make excuses to themselves. 33% said they make excuses to others.
Both groups are underestimating. Significantly.
The people who said they only make excuses to themselves are absolutely making them to other people, too. They just don’t hear it when they do. And the people who said they make excuses to others? They’re making far more to themselves than they realize. Everyone makes excuses in both directions, all the time. The only difference is how aware you are of it.
And most of us are far less aware than we think.
The Excuses You’d Never Call Excuses
Ask someone if they make excuses, and they’ll almost always say no. Or they’ll say, “Not really. Maybe sometimes.” And they believe it. They’re not lying. They just don’t recognize what an excuse actually looks like when it’s coming from their own mouth.
Because the excuses that run your life aren’t the obvious ones. They’re not “the dog ate my homework.” They’re the ones that sound like wisdom. Like self-awareness. Like perfectly reasonable explanations.
“I work better under pressure.” That’s an excuse for not starting sooner. “I’m just being realistic.” That’s an excuse for not aiming higher. “I need to think about it more.” That’s an excuse for not deciding. “It’s not the right time.” That’s an excuse for not acting.
None of those feels like an excuse when you say them. They feel like the truth. That’s what makes them so dangerous. The best excuses are the ones you’ve believed for so long that they’ve become part of how you see the world.
The Conversation Inside Your Head
The 66% who said they make excuses to themselves are onto something, even if they’re underestimating the scale. Because the most damaging excuses never leave your own head.
These are the stories you repeat so often that they stop sounding like stories. “I’m not a numbers person.” “I’m too old to start that.” “I’m not the type who speaks up in meetings.” “I’ve never been good at that.”
Every one of those is an excuse pretending to be an identity. And the cost isn’t just that you believe it. The cost is that you stop trying. You build your life around the limitation instead of questioning whether the limitation is even real.
Nobody challenges these excuses because nobody hears them. They live in the space between what you want and what you’re willing to do. And they stay there, unchecked, for years. Sometimes for a lifetime.
The Ones You Hand to Other People
Now, the 33% who admitted to making excuses to others. They’re closer to honest than most, but still way off on the number.
Think about your last week. How many times did you say some version of “I’ve been so busy” when someone asked about something you didn’t do? How many times did you blame timing, or traffic, or workload, or someone else’s delay? How many times did you soften a missed commitment with a story instead of just owning it?
We do this so automatically that it doesn’t feel like excuse-making. It feels like a conversation. Like being polite. Like giving context. But the person on the other end isn’t hearing context. They’re hearing that your word came with conditions.
The Honest Answer
The honest answer to “Do you make excuses?” is “Yes”. No one is immune to making excuses. What matters is how aware we are of them and how we deal with them. And this awareness is the starting point. Because the moment you accept that you make more excuses than you think, you start catching them. And the moment you start catching them, you get to choose. Keep the excuse, or take ownership.
That choice is available to you dozens of times a day. You’ve just never noticed it before.
