You’ve heard the phrase before. It’s gritty. It’s blunt. It’s often attributed to various sources, from military cadences to poems by anonymous authors or even traces back to the legendary George Washington Carver, who famously noted that "99 percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses." But the core sentiment—excuses are tools for the incompetent—isn't just a tough-love quote you'd find on a gym wall. It’s a psychological autopsy of why some people stagnate while others thrive.
Stop and think about the last time you missed a deadline or flubbed a workout. Was it because the "timing wasn't right"? Or because you "didn't have the resources"?
Honestly, we all do it.
The human brain is a master at cognitive dissonance. When our actions don't align with our goals, it's easier to build a bridge of excuses than to walk through the fire of accountability. But here’s the rub: those bridges don't actually lead anywhere. They just keep you stranded on the island of "almost."
The Psychology Behind Why We Build Monuments of Nothing
Why do we say excuses are tools for the incompetent? It sounds harsh, right? Incompetence isn't always a lack of talent. Often, it’s a lack of ownership. When someone leans on an excuse, they are essentially handing over their power to an external circumstance.
They’re saying, "I am not in control."
Psychologists often refer to this as an "external locus of control." If you believe that your success depends on the weather, the economy, or your boss’s mood, you’ve already lost. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals who attribute failures to external factors—factors they can't change—are significantly more likely to experience "learned helplessness." This is the scientific version of becoming incompetent. You literally teach your brain that effort is useless.
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On the flip side, high achievers use an "internal locus of control." They might acknowledge the rain, but they focus on the fact that they forgot an umbrella.
The "Tools" Analogy
Think about a carpenter. If a carpenter shows up to a job site with a broken hammer and blames the hammer for a crooked nail, he’s still a bad carpenter. The "tool" of the excuse is used to build a facade of competence where none exists.
In a professional setting, excuses function as a shield. They protect the ego from the stinging realization that we underperformed. But shields are heavy. If you spend all day carrying around reasons why you couldn't do something, you don't have any hands left to actually do the work.
It's a cycle. The more you use the tool, the more dependent you become on it. Eventually, your entire professional reputation is built on "why it didn't happen" rather than "how I made it work."
Real-World Stakes: When Excuses Kill Progress
Look at the world of high-stakes performance. In the SEAL Teams or elite athletic circles, the phrase excuses are tools for the incompetent is practically a law.
Why? Because in those environments, an excuse doesn't just result in a late report. It results in failure that ripples through an entire organization.
Take the 1911 race to the South Pole between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Amundsen was meticulous. He lived with Inuit people to learn how to use dogs, he picked the right clothes, and he planned for every contingency. Scott, however, relied on ponies that froze and motor sledges that broke. When things went sideways, Scott’s journals were filled with complaints about the weather and the "bad luck" they encountered.
Amundsen reached the pole and returned safely. Scott and his team perished.
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Was the weather worse for Scott? Not really. Amundsen simply refused to use the "tool" of an excuse. He viewed every obstacle as a technical problem to be solved, not a reason to fail. This is the difference between mastery and incompetence. One man prepared for the environment; the other expected the environment to accommodate him.
How to Spot an Excuse Before It Becomes a Crutch
We need to be real here. Not every explanation is an excuse. If a literal meteor hits your office, saying "a meteor hit the office" is a fact.
The transition from "explanation" to "excuse" happens the moment you stop looking for a solution.
- The "I didn't have time" Trap: Everyone has the same 24 hours. When you say you didn't have time, you're actually saying it wasn't a priority.
- The "It's not my job" Deflection: This is the ultimate tool of the incompetent. It signals a lack of skin in the game.
- The "I'm waiting for X" Delay: Waiting for the "perfect" moment is just a sophisticated way of being scared.
If you find yourself starting sentences with "I would have, but..." you're reaching into the toolbox of the incompetent. Put the tool down.
Moving From Incompetence to Radical Accountability
So, how do you stop? How do you move away from the mindset that excuses are tools for the incompetent and toward one of actual results?
It starts with language.
Instead of saying, "The traffic made me late," try saying, "I didn't leave early enough to account for traffic." It sounds small. It feels annoying to say. But it shifts the power back to you. If the traffic made you late, you’re a victim. If you didn't leave early enough, you’re the pilot. You can fix that tomorrow. You can't fix the traffic.
The "No-Excuse" Framework
- Acknowledge the Friction: Admit that something went wrong. Don't lie.
- Identify the Pivot: Ask yourself, "What could I have done differently to bypass this obstacle?"
- The Repair: Fix the current mess without pointing fingers.
- The Prevention: Change your system so the same "reason" doesn't pop up next week.
In organizations like the U.S. Military, they use "After Action Reviews" (AARs). The goal isn't to find who to blame; it's to find what happened and how to improve. There is no room for "well, the other guy didn't do his part." If the other guy didn't do his part, why didn't you have a backup plan?
It's a ruthless way to live, but it's also incredibly freeing. When you stop making excuses, you realize that you have a massive amount of agency over your life.
The Social Cost of Being "That Person"
Nobody likes the "excuse maker." You know the one. Every meeting begins with a five-minute monologue about why the slides aren't ready or why the email didn't go out.
Eventually, people stop asking that person for help. They stop giving them opportunities. Why? Because an excuse is a debt of trust. Every time you offer an excuse instead of a result, you’re drawing from your "trust bank." Eventually, the account hits zero.
Competence is, at its heart, the ability to deliver. If you can't deliver, the reason why doesn't actually matter to the person waiting on you. They just see the hole where the result should be.
Nuance: When is it actually out of your hands?
Let's be fair. Systemic issues exist. Chronic illness, economic collapse, and genuine tragedies are real.
The "excuses are tools for the incompetent" mantra isn't about ignoring reality. It's about how you respond to it. If you have a setback, the competent person asks, "Given these new, terrible constraints, what is the best possible outcome I can generate?"
The incompetent person says, "The constraints are there, so I'm doing nothing."
Final Actionable Steps to Kill the Excuse Habit
If you want to purge these tools from your life, you have to be surgical about it. This isn't about "trying harder." It's about changing your default settings.
Audit your vocabulary for one week. Every time you explain a failure, look for the word "because." If what follows "because" is something outside of your body, rephrase it. "I missed the gym because it was raining" becomes "I chose not to go to the gym because I didn't want to get wet." See how that feels? It's uncomfortable. Good. That discomfort is where growth lives.
Adopt the "One-Minute Rule" for mistakes. When you mess up, you get exactly 60 seconds to feel bad or vent about the "unfair" circumstances. Once the minute is up, you are legally barred from mentioning the cause again. You are only allowed to speak about the solution.
Build "Redundancy Systems." Incompetence often stems from a lack of margin. If your computer dying ruins your career, you didn't have a backup. If one person quitting ruins your project, you didn't have a cross-trained team. Competent people build systems that assume things will go wrong.
Find an Accountability Partner who doesn't care about your feelings. Find someone who will call you out when you start building that monument of excuses. You need someone who will look you in the eye and say, "I don't care why it happened; I care that it's not done."
Success is built on a foundation of "in spite of," not "because of." The next time you feel an excuse bubbling up in your throat—even if it's a "valid" one—swallow it. Deliver the result instead. You'll find that once you stop using the tools of the incompetent, you start building something much more valuable: a reputation for getting things done.