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Excuses, Mediocrity, and How to Rise above Them!

A clear sign of leadership maturity is the willingness to take responsibility. One aspect of this virtue is refusing to make excuses for personal failures or for those of others. I readily admit that listening while others blame is one of my pet peeves. Little rubs me rawer than when someone attempts to defend failed actions or inferior results by compromising, sanitizing, or trivializing the truth. Occasionally, I must endure the whininess in person at one of my workshops, as a leader goes to great lengths to defend why he’s keeping “five-car Fred” on the payroll. In other instances, it’s a self-righteous lecture I occasionally receive via email from a reader in denial. I rarely have time to respond to the complainers anymore. Over the years, replying to their reasoning has drained far too much time. I may be a slow learner, but I have picked up on the fact that people who rationalize failure are practically un-coachable and mostly unchangeable.

Excuses for failure remind me of a quote I heard and embraced years ago: “Excuses are the DNA of underachievers.” This same speaker went on to say that living in denial makes you a prisoner of wrong actions and outdated beliefs since it is impossible to change what you don’t acknowledge. Most would agree that excuses are a prime contributor to mediocrity. When you begin to explain away why you, or others, failed to deliver results, you become quite ordinary and blend into a crowded mass of mediocre souls slogging through life, all the while complaining that they haven’t caught the breaks or are victims of bad press or perceptions. In their sanctimonious minds, they are simply misunderstood. But what they fail to understand is that success, and failures, are not accidents. You either set yourself up for them or you don’t. Successes and failures both result from a series of choices and actions one makes over time, of sowing and reaping. While one may catch a good or bad break occasionally, over the course of a lifetime, you don’t succeed or fail by chance.

Those who become mediocre in their thinking, actions, and results, forego the opportunity to turn their fortunes around by shifting their focus to making better decisions and taking wiser action. Instead, they continue to bemoan conditions and render themselves powerless to affect their own futures. If you look up the dictionary’s definition for “mediocre,” it says: moderate to inferior in quality; ordinary. This definition reflects an accurate picture of what happens when one engages in the blame game.

If you’ve succumbed to the blaming habit, you’re in grave danger of becoming “moderate to inferior,” if you haven’t descended into that state already. Here are five thoughts concerning mediocrity to help you, or someone you care about, right your course and stay on a path of personal responsibility that elevates your self-worth, the value you bring to others, and to your organization.

Mediocrity begins with “me.” It is not something that someone or something does to you. It is a result of choices you’ve made, conditions you’ve accepted, or wrong actions you’ve taken.
Mediocrity is a personal concession to less than your best. What the mediocre are really saying is, “this is good enough so deal with it.” When you substitute excuses for results, you are boldly making this concession and resigning yourself to living out a career and life that’s “good enough” rather than the best it can be.
You break free from mediocrity by making better decisions, not by waiting for more favorable conditions. This should encourage you, because while you cannot control conditions, you do have control over your decisions.
Living in denial prolongs your marriage with mediocrity. If you don’t face it, you cannot fix it. The box you’ve put yourself in will one day become a casket.
Make your break with any mediocre aspect of your life by deciding to do the following:
- Put away your black belt in blame and accept responsibility for your results. Understand that one of the best days of your life is the day that you renounce excuses, grow up, and become a man or woman of responsibility and accountability.
- Stop defending mediocrity in others on your team, and face reality about their skills, talent, discipline, attitude, or character. Only when you first see people as they really are can you help them become what they’re meant to be.
- Commit to personal development so that you elevate the quality of your thinking, and are able to make better personal choices concerning your own attitude, character choices, application of knowledge, and strengthening of discipline.
- Get clearer about what you want and then resolve to pay the price to achieve it; deciding up front that you’ll ditch the excuses and hold yourself accountable for results.

One of the saddest epitaphs for many who choose to lead mediocre lives will be that when they die it will be as though they never lived. But what’s sadder yet is that when the sweat of their death bed wakes them up to the fact that they’ve missed their life, they’ll be haunted by the classic lament of life’s biggest underachievers: “I could have, I should have, if only I would have.”

Each day you have two choices: performance or excuses. Choose well, it becomes your legacy.

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Comment by Tom Gorham on October 29, 2011 at 12:55pm: Thank you Mr. Anderson for your response. The kind words were sincere as was my regret for coming off confrontational. And congratulations that your video has been sso successful on DealerElite. I especially appreciate your statement that, "I never have, and never will, criticize one who has no aspiration for leadership. In my opinion, this does not mean one is lazy. Doing whatever one does for a living with excellence, is far more important than what one does for a living overall."

As for your birthday wishes, I am often surprised another one is here so soon. I often forget about my age until a birthday comes along or my body tells me I'm not as young as I used to be. My lovely wife keeps me feeling young everyday. Thank you!

Comment by Dave Anderson on October 28, 2011 at 4:39pm: Dear Mr. Gorham,

Thank you for your message and kind words.

The "Whining is No Substitute for Working!" video to which you refer offered the advice, "If you're on a losing streak, don't give up. I'd rather be a loser than a quitter. A loser is someone who tries, comes up short, and tries again. A quitter simply gives up." I considered that as a motivational, and not a critical, remark. What I am critical of is when someone chooses to act like a victim, doesn't take personal responsibility for the poor choices that contribute to their misfortune, and begins to blame others.

I never have, and never will, criticize one who has no aspiration for leadership. In my opinion, this does not mean one is lazy. Doing whatever one does for a living with excellence, is far more important than what one does for a living overall.

Concerning your statement that your message may have come off as confrontational, and that you would not demean someone else's contributions and achievements, based on the words and tone you chose (below) I'm not sure how anyone could think anything other than that was precisely what you were trying to do.

"and YOU Mr. Anderson are lucky enough to have skills that can be transferred to "consultant" jobs after you no longer qualify for "real" jobs."

I hope that you continue to enjoy your work, perform with excellence, and leave a meaningful legacy. Enjoy your upcoming birthday, and many, many, more.

Kind regards,

Dave Anderson

Comment by Tom Gorham on October 24, 2011 at 8:51pm: Mr. Anderson, thank you for this opportunity to comment on your opinion. In a former article, I commented in a way that may have seemed confrontational, but I never got a chance to follow-up that comment. I would never demean someone's contributions and achievements and if I seemed to do so in that comment, I regret it. In fact, I am a fan of your videos on responsibility and self-reliance, and have shared those at my dealership.

Because I have compassion and empathy for many today in our society who have lost everything through no fault of their own, I reacted in dismay to what appeared to be a lack of acknowledgement of their situations. I truly believe that whining about your problems gets you no-where.

Although I am fortunate to have never been in such a situation, I feel for people who have devoted their lives to a company only to lose their job a few years before their retirement. No, they are not leaders such as you speak about. Yes they also lost most of their retirement in the recession, and possibly their homes. Maybe they were not as prepared for such a catastrophe as they should have been and perhaps that is their main fault.

Whether they whine or not is irrelevant to my sympathy for them. Many will suffer in silence and do everything "they know how" to rectify their situation.

Is your advice good advice? Yes, of course. It is advice I would personally take in such a situation. I am 61 years old (next week), I am in a field of young people (Automotive Internet and Digital Marketing) and I feel vibrant in what I do. I have a passion, if you will, for what I do.

I see you as a leader, and a worthy one. But I see many leaders today criticizing instead of motivating. I see leaders saying that anyone who is not a leader is a lazy person. But I have seen people all my life who work hard just to have a decent living, and have no aspiration to be a leader. I grew up believing that hard work will provide a decent life. There was no mention of being a leader or one of the top 1%. And let's face it, without followers, there are no leaders.

Sorry for this long explanation. You may disagree with everything I said here, but that is what forums are all about. Do you agree?

Comment by john Benjamin on August 1, 2011 at 4:56pm: Dave,

This reminds me of something John Wooden said, you haven't failed until you blame someone else.

Comment by Shari Doran on June 17, 2011 at 1:13pm: Dave,

Thank you! I intend on adding a training segment with this as my fuel! A powerful message with a powerful truth. I am constantly telling my staff that you cannot simply wait for success to come to you...You need to reach out and take what you want. This will be a great addition to assist me in delivering that message.

As always, its a pleasure to read! Take care!

-Shari

Comment by Craig Lockerd on June 14, 2011 at 6:15pm: Thanks Dave,this going to my entire team....

Comment by Katie Colihan on June 13, 2011 at 1:32pm: This is a great one, Dave! This hit home today, as it's easy to get lost in the hubbub of the day and not remember that how your day goes, you have total control over.

Thanks for the reminder!

Comment by Bill Goodfriend on June 9, 2011 at 11:03pm: As much as I read, network and keep my finger on the pulse it never ceases to amaze me how much you influence me. Thanks for being you Dave; keep writing & making videos. You have been an amazing resource for me to reference anytime I hit a lull for continuing to remain focused, kick it into high gear, or just plain old internalize to make the necessary changes. BTW...that's the hardest one. LOL!

Comment by Larry Bonorato on June 9, 2011 at 4:56pm: Dave, this article goes hand-in-hand with the statement; "The only thing worse than setting goals too high and missing them is setting them too low and hitting them." Thanks for the great post!

Comment by Frank Graham on June 8, 2011 at 1:13pm: Dave, you continue to elevate the quality of the dialog and it is deeply appreciated. Your pragmatic, values and principles approach is refreshing and encouraging. Thanks for a great post.