story on when you fail don't make excuses
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Making Excuses Zaps Your Motivation. So Don’t Do It.
By tyler tervooren | 5 minute read
The gist: When you make excuses for your hardships, it zaps your motivation and power to recover. To succeed in the long-term, take responsibility for failure even when its not your fault.
11-year-old James had a big, impractical idea. He was going to graduate from high school. Before you dismiss what would seem an alarmingly average accomplishment, consider his story.
James lived in rural, war-torn Uganda. He lost his entire family to disease by the time he was six and was raised by his grandmother who didn’t even earn enough for the $500/year school tuition.
A high school diploma was not the default path for James. And you could hardly blame him if he decided that goal was impossible—that he should give up and work in the fields.
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But he didn’t. Instead, he and his grandmother devised a long-shot of a plan to secure the financing his tuition.
It all stated with a goat.
His grandmother sold one of hers and, with the proceeds, James bought shoes, clothes, and a bus ticket to the capital city where he’d stay with his aunt.
That’s where the plan gets more interesting.
To get the money necessary for school, he’d sneak into the president’s compound and ask for a scholarship. It would require scaling a barbed-wire fence and getting past armed guards.
Once inside, though, he’d learned that he’d be greeted warmly and given money for tuition.
So that’s what he did. And—to everyone’s amazement—it worked. Today, now in his 30s, James has two masters degrees and is a leader with a great job.
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Making excuses and giving up would have been easy and certainly forgiven.