What Happens When We Make Excuses?

When you make excuses, you destroy your ability to move closer to achieving your goals and aspirations. Excuses provide you the reason to give up. The moment something gets hard, or scary, or you feel you might fail, you can just pick up the excuse weapon and have your means of an exit. You tell life and those around you that you have no intention of living up to your full potential. You are more than happy with mediocrity.

Excuses let you run away from opportunities and accomplishing what you may actually want out of life. The more you use excuses, the stronger the tendency to take the excuse route the next time something difficult rolls around. Excuses are a way of avoiding responsibility, avoiding work, and sometimes even avoiding success and all you might be capable of accomplishing.

But … I'm too …

Often when I hear myself giving an excuse or complaining, I think of Kerri Strug.

It was the summer Olympics of 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia. I was riveted to the television. The U.S. women's gymnastics team had never (ever) won an Olympic team gold medal before. The favorites, the Russians and the Romanians, were teams with more experience, more world titles, and big expectations to win.

The U.S. women's gymnastics team historically always stayed in the Olympic village so they could meet other athletes, watch events, and enjoy the whole experience of the games. Except in 1996 they didn't. Amid all the distraction of the games they decided to live in a top-secret location. The secret location was later disclosed as a fraternity house at Emory University. (Really? We want to make sure they are ready for the biggest sporting event of the last four years and we put them in a fraternity house? No one thought of or suggested the Ritz Carlton?)

The competition was fierce from the beginning as Russia led after the compulsory rounds, but the competition heated up after the United States pulled into the lead during each of the separate events. With just one event left, the vault, the United States was in first place with a strong lead. With the gold seemingly locked down for the United States, the unexpected happened, as Dominique Moceanu, the team leader and favorite, falls twice on the vault and puts the gold medal back on the table for any of the top three teams to win.

Next on the vault for the United States is Kerri Strug, who according to experts did not possess the competitiveness, the fire, or the toughness that many of the other gymnasts on the team seemed to exhibit. Standing tall at 4-feet, 9-inches, this Tucson, Arizona, gymnast was not considered a leader on the team.

In front of 32,000 spectators, Strug set up for the vault and then sprinted down the launch pad, hit the vault, spun one and a half times in the air, and made a blind landing. Kerri slipped on the landing and felt a snap in her left ankle. She immediately fell to the ground in pain. Unable to determine if this score would win the United States the gold, her coach asked Kerri to complete a second vault. She hobbled back to the vault line as the crowd jumped to its feet while screaming and applauding her bravery. “Please, God, help me make this vault,” she said to herself as she waited for permission from the judges to start her vault. “I know I can do it one more time, injured ankle or not!”

Breathing deeply, she sprinted down the runway as every eye in the Georgia Dome was on her. Kerri came down hard on both her feet and heard a second snap in her left ankle. Holding the famous gymnast pose long enough for the judges, Kerri then fell to the floor holding her leg as the crowd went wild. As she was leaving the floor, the scoreboard flashed up a 9.72, and the United States women's gymnastics team won the gold! Everyone around the world witnessed an amazing act of courage and the event became one of the greatest moments of sports history.¹

What made it even more memorable and cemented her status as a legend among athletes was the way she handled the moment. She chose to keep going and do the hard thing with no excuses, which is a lesson we can all learn.

However, the deeper and more profound lesson is that Kerri's decision to do hard things, not complain, and not make excuses was made years ago. It was made as she trained, day after day, coming in early when she was tired, staying late when she would have preferred to hang out with her friends and eat McDonald's fries, and go to a movie. Kerri Strug made that decision over and over again all those years while she trained to become an international athlete. She exemplified a rare success- producing trait, the ability to do hard things and not complain or give excuses.

On the other hand, consider whether it was wise for Kerri to vault a second time when she was injured. Was it worth risking her chance to compete in the individual rounds? I love the lesson that Kerri taught us about continuing on when our career and lives become difficult, but it is also wise to know when to stop and cut our losses. Continuing on a path or in an environment that is not healthy for us can be destructive and have heavy consequences. The takeaway is to recognize when you are using excuses and not giving your best and then to determine to follow Kerri's example of excellence. At the right time in your life, you may be given the chance to have your own Kerri Strug moment.