A common problem I have noticed among college students has been the tendency to take shortcuts that undermine our progress and our ability to strive towards success.
One of the biggest issues I see is that we use an endless stream of excuses to justify our lack of effort. “I don’t feel well,” “My turtle just died” and “I’m too anxious,” are all things that we have said to ourselves and professors at one time or another to rationalize a choice we made to skip out on work.
These things happen, and we can’t blame ourselves for failing when it does because it happens to everyone. The problem begins when we systematically allow stress points to block the path to success and real self-improvement.
The reality is that life is difficult and there are plenty of valid problems that get in the way of what we need to accomplish. These problems are excuses — whether good or bad. Even when they are good, we decide to use that as justification to not pursue our goals.
We all want to find the perfect conditions for completing difficult tasks, but we don’t want to acknowledge that there will almost never be a time when internal and external forces don’t get in the way of progress. I believe that the key to moving beyond excuses and actually improving is to acknowledge this capacity to tap out long before we need to.
If we allow something small — like a stomach ache or a rough morning — to destroy our plans for the rest of the day, then what will we do when confronted with something genuinely challenging? How will we manage challenges beyond college if life only becomes more difficult beyond that point? This isn’t to say that there aren’t times when you can reasonably acknowledge your limitations and strategically allow yourself to rest. But, we all can benefit from acknowledging that small obstacles are not as insurmountable as they immediately seem.
The goal should be to look at added stressors with a sense of excitement. The things that get in the way of our progress are what makes our goals worth doing. If it were easy to get your degree, become a great artist, get out of bed in the morning or achieve your dreams, then they really wouldn’t be worth doing. Who wants to do something that everyone else can do with little to no effort?
Adversity is the marker that we are headed in the right direction. The blessing and curse of modern American culture is that we are aware of many of the internal and external factors that affect people on a daily basis. It is good that we understand that mental illness, prejudice and malicious intent are problems that we face — but it is a problem that we can interpret these as an excuse to stop fighting to the best of our ability.
Instead of looking inward to find greater strength in what we have yet to overcome, we have become bitter towards whatever brought us that level of misfortune in the first place. The only solution is to come to terms with the fact that nothing will ever get easier, nothing will ever be ideal and no amount of bitterness towards things we can’t control will make them any more controllable.
