The Real Reason People Fail: Consistency, Discomfort, and the “Excuse Machine”

Excuses Are Goal Killers.

Last month, I wrote about my Formula for Success. And like I said in that post, it is not groundbreaking. It is a clean mashup of principles you already know. You genuinely do know how to be successful and how to accomplish any goal you set for yourself. All I did was put it into clear terms so you can see it, track it, and audit yourself against it.

But the reason most people do not persist long enough to see their goals come to fruition is usually one of two things. They fail in the third category: consistency. Or they fail because they are not willing to do the uncomfortable thing long enough for it to pay off.

Today I want to focus on the first one.

Because excuses are goal killers.

They are demons sent from another planet to prevent you from becoming the person that you want to be.

And the reason they are so dangerous is because they almost always show up dressed as something reasonable. They sound mature. They sound justified. They sound like life simply got in the way.

Which brings me to one of the most common phrases people use when they stop being consistent.

If you have a plan and you are not consistent, it is usually because, “something came up.”

That phrase is the beginning of the end if you let it be.

How It Started For Me

I was an athlete in high school. I trained like one. I lifted like one. Squats were just part of the deal.

Then I graduated.

And because I was not an athlete anymore, I decided I did not need to squat anymore. In my mind, I used the justification that squats were for athletes.

That was not a dramatic decision to quit training. It was just a small, logical sounding story I told myself.

But that one story started a chain reaction.

Next leg day, I did a few reps on the leg extension machine instead. I remember that day vividly. The next week, there was no leg day. Then more “adjustments.” More justifications. More lowering the bar.

And before I knew it, the gym was not a part of my life anymore. And the next thing I know, I gained 100 pounds and could not even recognize myself.

That is how it happens.

Not with one massive failure. With one excuse that becomes a precedent.

Discipline Does Not Have To Be Abstract

Discipline can feel vague. Abstract. Different for everyone. Because discipline is technically being the person that you want to be, and we would have to define that person to define the standard.

But at a minimum, discipline can be practical:

Have a plan. Execute the plan. Be consistent with the plan.

If you can write your plan on paper, then you can audit your execution.

And the only reason you would not continue and be consistent is because an excuse showed up and you let it win.

The Endless Excuse Problem

This is where people get themselves in trouble. They do not just make one excuse. They start to generate them endlessly.

They become what I call excuse machines.

It is like an automatic excuse generator. Like a bottomless excuse fountain that keeps producing new reasons on demand.

“I did not get enough sleep.”

“I had a rough day at work.”

“I had a stressful conversation with my partner.”

“I am not feeling it today.”

“I am too busy.”

“I will double up tomorrow.”

And look, life happens. But most of the time, what people call “reasons” are actually just emotions and discomfort disguised as logic.

That is why I run people through the excuse machine exercise.

The Excuse Machine Exercise

The goal is simple: get ahead of your excuses before you are face to face with them in the moment, when standards get negotiated and emotions get loud.

Step 1: List every excuse you can think of.

Every single one. From the small stuff to the extreme stuff.

“I did not sleep well.”

“I stubbed my toe.”

“I had a bad day at work.”

“I got into an argument with my partner.”

All the way up to the worst case scenarios you can imagine.

The point is to drag the excuses out into the open, so they stop hiding in the dark.

Step 2: Rate each excuse on a scale of 1 to 5.

1 means, “This would never keep me out of the gym.”

5 means, “This is legitimately a real reason.”

Somewhere in the middle is where most people get confused. They label inconvenience and emotion as “valid reasons,” when they are not.

Step 3: Decide the threshold.

Where is the point at which you will actually not go?

What is the real line where you say, “Okay, this is the threshold, and anything below it is not an excuse anymore”?

Because if you do not decide that line ahead of time, you will decide it in the moment. And in the moment, your emotions will argue you into taking the easier option.

Why This Works

This exercise forces clarity.

It helps you see, from a 30,000-foot view, what is actually worthy of breaking consistency.

And it helps you realize something important:

What you used to call reasons are actually just BS excuses.

Because most of the things that “come up” are not emergencies. They are friction. They are inconvenience. They are emotions.

And every time you choose to go anyway, you raise your standard.

You prove to yourself that the excuses you used to rely on were never that real.

And the best part is this: once you beat an excuse one time, it gets weaker forever.

If you stub your toe and still go, then stubbing your toe is never an excuse again.

If you have a bad day at work and still go, then a bad day at work is never an excuse again.

You are checking off excuses permanently, and over time your threshold rises because you have real proof that you can do the hard thing even when you do not feel like it.

As opposed to what most people do, which is the second they have an out, they take it.

And now they have set the opposite precedent.

They have taught their brain that because they had a bad day at work, that is justification to not go.

They have trained themselves to quit.

The Wrap

So here is the punchline.

Excuses are goal killers. They will always try to show up. They will always try to sound convincing. And they will always try to sneak in through the phrase, “something came up.”

But when you get ahead of your excuses using the excuse machine exercise, you start to see clearly what is actually worthy of breaking your consistency.

Spoiler alert: it is not going to be very much.

The things that truly justify breaking consistency are rare and infrequent.

Which means most of the time, you genuinely do not have many excuses to not be consistent.

And once you can see that clearly, you stop negotiating.

You stop getting dragged around by convenience and emotions.

You start doing what you said you would do.

And that is the whole game.