Half effort always seems to come with full-sized excuses.

There is a neat relationship between how little you put in and how much explaining you do afterward. The explanation does the work the effort did not, because it protects you from the plain version, which is that you did not really try. Being unlucky is easier to say than being underprepared. The trade is that the story leaves you nothing to fix.

Next time you catch yourself building a reason before the result is even in, stop and name the effort level instead. Something as simple as: I did about half of this. Nobody else has to hear it, and it changes the following week.