Excuse — an attempt to lessen the blame attaching to a fault or offence; seeking to defend or justify.

When faced with an unfavourable outcome, our own sense of self identity ultimately seeks to protect itself by casting blame elsewhere, other than by first attempting to look for fault within itself. We defensively and desperately look to absolve ourselves of our own shortcomings and cast judgement, not on ourselves, but on others or even things.

The benefits of excuses; saving face. The drawbacks of excuses; never moving forward in life, only thinking that we are.

Perhaps the most difficult thing psychologically for us to do is to objectively observe our situation to the point that we are willing to accept the fact that “I might be wrong.” An excuse is a mental-override which allows us to keep thinking, “Yup, I am awesome, it’s just the circumstances that are out of control.”

Wrong. Everything is under control if you let it be.

Granted, as a caveat to all of this, when walking the road of no excuses, you can quickly stumble into the trenches of regret. “If only I were…” “If only I had…” “If only—” will get you nowhere, save for running the mind in circles.

Have no excuses and hold no regrets. Either you win or you learn.

One thing we often mistake ourselves with is that we think that we can somehow right a wrong retroactively. We cannot. We can only move forward with the knowledge that we have gained through our own ill-begotten experience. Either make amends, or move on — there's no going back.

Either you win or you learn.

There is no one else to blame, and nothing for you to regret; only experience, interwoven with the ability to move forward with new information — that's the only way to grow. There are no shortcuts. You can either choose to become stuck in your old pattern of thinking, clinging desperately to the warm embrace of excuse; or, you can push past who you once were and take ownership over your life and your situation; standing atop the lonely peak of triumph.

—there are no excuses. Now get going!