Creative Excuses

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

― Henry Ford

Your Excuses Are More Creative Than Your Solutions

I want to start by paying you a compliment. You are a creative genius. You are a master storyteller, a brilliant logician, and a persuasive orator. The narratives you construct are intricate, detailed, and emotionally resonant. You have an incredible talent.

The only problem is where you are directing it.

I am not talking about your career or your hobbies. I am talking about your excuses. The story of why you "can't" is the most elaborate, well-researched, and passionately defended creative project in your entire life. And it is holding you hostage.

You have spent more energy explaining why you are trapped than it would take to simply pick the lock. Imagine, for just one moment, if you redirected every ounce of that creative power away from justifying your problems and towards designing your solutions.

The Artistry of Your Justifications

Listen to yourself next time you explain why you haven't made a change. It's never a simple statement. It’s a masterpiece.

"I don't have time" is not a three word excuse. It is an epic poem about your demanding job, your family obligations, the commute, the broken washing machine, and the friend who needed you last weekend.

"I don't have the money" is not a financial statement. It is a gripping thriller involving rising inflation, unexpected bills, and a detailed forecast of future economic uncertainty.

You have become the bard of your own failure. You can recite, chapter and verse, every single reason why your goal is impossible. You have mapped every dragon swimming in the moat and catalogued the precise sharpness of every thorn in the briar patch. The irony is that the energy you expend painting a detailed portrait of the locked door is more than enough to have simply built a battering ram and smashed it open.

The Energy Drain of Being "Right"

Why do we do this? Why do we dedicate our genius to such a self-defeating project? Because on some level, we are more committed to being right about our limitations than we are to being free of them.

Your intricate excuse is an argument. An argument designed to prove to yourself, and to the world, that your inaction is not your fault. It is logical. It is justified. It is reasonable. And if you can prove that, you get to be right. You win the argument.

But what is the prize? The prize is that you get to stay exactly where you are.

This is a profound waste of your most valuable resources: your time, your focus, and your creative fire. Every moment you spend reinforcing the reasons you can't, you are robbing your future self of the solutions that could be. You are perfecting the architecture of your own cage.

The Pivot: From Justification to Creation

The good news is that you do not need to find some new, magical source of creativity. You already have it in abundance. You just need to give it a new job description. The pivot is from a defensive posture to an offensive one.

You must stop treating your problem as a verdict and start treating it as a creative brief.

Here is how you re-task your brain. Instead of stating the problem, start asking the solution oriented question.

• Instead of: "I don't have time."

• Ask: "How can I find 15 minutes?"

• Instead of: "I don't have the right skills."

• Ask: "What is the most important skill I need, and how can I learn the first 1% of it this week?"

• Instead of: "I don't have the money."

• Ask: "What is the cheapest possible first step I can take?"

These questions force your creative mind to stop building walls and start building ladders. You are redirecting its immense power from proving your imprisonment to plotting your escape.

Your First Creative Solution

Let's put this into practice. It is time to stop being the poet of your problems and start being the engineer of your solutions.

Step 1: Write Down Your Masterpiece.

Choose one goal you have been avoiding. Now, write down your number one, most compelling, most well-rehearsed excuse for why you cannot achieve it. Write it out in all its glorious, logical detail. Don't hold back.

Step 2: Give Your Excuse a Promotion.

Look at that beautiful excuse. Appreciate the work that went into it. Now, give it a new job. Say to it, "Okay, you have brilliantly identified all the obstacles. Congratulations. Your new role is Chief of Problem Solving. Your first task is to propose one tiny, creative solution for the biggest obstacle you have identified."

Step 3: Brainstorm One "Bad" Idea.

The pressure for a perfect solution is what sends us back to our excuses. So let's lower the stakes. Your task is not to find the perfect answer. It is to generate one "bad" idea. A tiny idea. A playful idea. An idea so small it is almost laughable.

• If the obstacle is "no time," your bad idea might be to listen to a 5 minute podcast on the topic while you brush your teeth.

• If the obstacle is "no money," your bad idea might be to find three things in your house you could sell online for a fiver each.

• If the obstacle is "I don't know where to start," your bad idea might be to send an email to one person who might know, with the subject line "Quick question."

This is not about solving the whole problem. It is about breaking the creative pattern. It is about proving that your mind can generate solutions just as easily as it can generate justifications.

The evidence of your creative power is right there, in the fortress of excuses you have built. Now, pick up a single stone from that fortress and use it to build your first step forward.