Obstacles vs. Excuses: How to Know The Difference Between Them
The Fox and The Grapes is a fable with a brilliant life lesson on obstacles and excuses.
One day, a fox comes across a beautiful vine of ripe and juicy grapes hanging from the branch of a tree and his mouth instantly waters as he stares at them.
The branch was a little too high off the ground so he figured he had to jump for it.
In his first attempt, he missed it by a stride. In his second attempt, he trailed backward before going for a running leap, but, again he fell short of its reach. Again and again, he tried, but all attempts fell in vain.
Defeated, he sat down and looked up at the vine of grapes.
"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."
Life is unpredictable.
Sometimes, as you finally build up the courage to launch a new project, and when all looks to be a smooth sail onwards, you are suddenly faced with what seems like a mountain of problems. Are they excuses, or are they obstacles?
Let’s find out.
The Difference: Excuses vs. Obstacles
We all have dreams we want to accomplish.
One of mine was to launch my own business. Yet, I spent the majority of the past decade speaking about the idea but never pursuing it. My reasons were as follows:
I don’t have time to start my own business.
I don’t have an idea yet.
I don’t have the money for it.
Perhaps one of your goals is to publish a book.
Maybe you share similar rationalizations as per the above:
I don’t have time to write.
I can’t seem to find the inspiration to write.
I don’t have all the plot details in place yet, so I haven’t started.
Those are not obstacles.
Those are excuses.
Why? Because all of the above are reasons you are giving yourself to rationalize why you can’t start walking the path of what it is you want to accomplish. All of the above are illusions you are repeatedly forging to tell yourself why you haven’t yet started.
Excuses are fabricated illusions we create to rationalize our behaviors when we’re too afraid to go after what we really want.
Life presented me with many opportunities to start my own business, but I was too afraid to commit to one. I didn’t prioritize it in my life, so I never consciously created time to sit down and thoroughly work on my ideas.
Did I really not have time? Of course, I did. I just never carved time out of my schedule and dedicated it to building a business. Did I really not have the money? Of course, I did. I could’ve easily cut down my spending on shopping and social activities to invest that money into my idea.
Do you really have no time to write? What are you doing on the weeknights and weekends? Can you not block out three hours per week to sit down and write? Of course, you can. Maybe you’re not writing because you’re secretly too afraid to write a book and see it flop. Maybe you keep giving yourself the excuse of time because you’re too afraid of the fear of judgment.
Excuses are fabricated illusions we create to make ourselves feel better for not doing what it is we know we should be doing.
Excuses are fabrications.
They are ideas that aren’t real. We simply create them and voice them over and over again until they become deep-rooted beliefs. Excuses are inadequate reasons we seek out to justify why we can’t do what it is we want to do. They sound great, but, in truth, they garner no foundation and thus have no merit.
The worst thing about excuses is that they can become a form of what psychologists refer to as confirmation bias. This is a type of cognitive bias that “involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs.” In other words, your mind begins to look for real-life examples and reasons as to why your excuses are valid!
At the core of it, excuses are rooted in inaction: You make excuses so that you don’t have to do what you know you should or want to be doing.
So what are obstacles?
Obstacles are hurdles that pop up along your journey of working toward what it is you want to achieve.
The height of the branch was the fox’s obstacle. The challenge of figuring out how to build a business was mine. The struggle of working through the hours of writing and research so you can finish your book is yours.
Obstacles are obstructions that appear along the way.
Do you see the difference between the two?
Excuses are fabricated problems that are voiced to stop you from taking action toward your goal. Obstacles are emerging problems that appear as you take action toward your goal.
Here are some examples:
The COVID-19 is an obstacle that brick-and-mortar businesses need to deal with at the moment. How are they going to continue to reach their customers? How are they going to ensure financial stability? These are obstacles they need to overcome.
You want to learn Spanish, but you aren’t committing to an online class. You’re busy, so you don’t have time. That’s an excuse.
You finish writing your book and are ready to find a publisher. You’ve been rejected by 10 already. How are you going to find a publisher? That’s an obstacle you must overcome.
You want to move to a new country so you can experience living abroad. But you’re scared. You’re worried that you won’t make new friends or find a job to sustain you. Those are excuses.
There’s a Thin Line Between Obstacles and Excuses: You Must Want it Badly Enough
The fox really wanted those grapes. At first, he didn’t justify whether he should or shouldn’t or why he could or couldn’t attain them—he didn’t make any excuses. Instead, he lunged straight for his target.
The height of the branch was his obstacle.
But after a few failed attempts, he gave up and rationalized why he doesn’t actually care about the grapes after all: “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.” Now, that’s an excuse, because if he really wanted those grapes, he would’ve been determined to found another way.
This fable really does demonstrate the difference between obstacles and excuses:
As you work toward your goals (as you are on the path), the problems that emerge are obstacles. As you sit down in thought (as you are off the path), the problems are fabricated and thus, illusions.
With that said, there’s a thin line between both.
You will continue to play with excuses until you decide that what you’re making excuses for is something that you want badly enough. That is the day the problems you face will transmute from excuses to obstacles.
Not having time to write becomes a problem that needs to be solved. Why? Because it stands between you and your goal.
Not having enough money to launch your idea becomes a problem that needs to be solved. Why? Because it stands between you and your goal.
So what’s the thin line that stands between excuses and obstacles? It’s this:
You must want it badly enough.
Once you do, you move from making excuses for inaction to actively finding solutions for the problems that emerge as obstacles. And as you treat whatever stands in the way as an obstacle, you begin to assemble the full creative resources of your mind to tackle the situation at hand and find ways to get over it, around it, or through it.
As per Randy Pausch’s words, begin seeing those obstacles as nothing more than brick walls standing in your way:
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
What Matters to You
If you keep giving yourself excuses, you’ll never walk the road. Twenty years down the line, you’ll regretfully look back and say “I wish I had.”
Overcoming excuses is a choice, but overcoming obstacles is the natural course of life.
Whatever it is you want to achieve in your life, you must be the first one to step forward toward it. Ask yourself: “How badly do I want this?”
If you want it badly enough, then start walking the path.
Make sure you reach for that grapevine and keep trying until they fall into the palms of your hands. And most importantly, enjoy the juice that oozes out of them.