It’s the excuses that hurt us.

The excuses we make to others as we let them down through carelessness, ignorance or selfishness, tarnish our self-respect and build feelings of guilt and inadequacy. They have longer term impact on our relationships and can lead to our loss of credibility.

But it is the excuses that we make to ourselves that really hurt us. How often do we invent the reasons for not going to the gym, for not focusing on a piece of work, for allowing ourselves that moment of over-indulgence? These excuses build into our subconscious redefining who we are.

So what’s the alternative?

Compassionate honesty. We should be honest about our reasons for doing or not doing what we have done or should have done. We should take responsibility for our actions and our words. To have moments of weakness is to be human and we should own them. We should ask for forgiveness of others and of ourselves.

We should show compassion to others with our honesty when we take the responsibilities on. We don’t have to be hurtful or overly direct. Sometimes tact is required, being wary that the tact doesn’t weave itself into more excuses.

More importantly we should be compassionate with ourselves. Removing excuses allows us to take radical responsibility and to face our own misdemeanours head on. We have to forgive ourselves. Hours, days and weeks of self-recrimination are not useful. Instead we should take pride in the integrity we show with our honesty.

We must also be sure that we mean to do better for ourselves and for others. The honesty is there to help us see more clearly and to improve our future decisions. The compassion is there because we believe ourselves willing and capable of doing better.

Excuses are the reasons we invent in order to hold ourselves to lower standards. We can raise our standards if we lose them.