Stop Making Excuses: How To Be An Active Participant in Your Life

There is an amazing Feng Shui creator and author by the name of Cliff Tan. I started following him after one of his flying monkeys eating you in your sleep videos. Feng Shui has been a huge part of why I am able to make so much out of little spaces, so to have someone make it absolutely hysterical in the process...I'm in. Then I saw his "don't be a weiner" videos. This man is my hero. I wish he did more of them. He mimics people whining about issues in their lives and then tweaks something and says, "Fix it." The look on his face gets me every time.

I have the same attitude.

If you don't like something, fucking fix it. Don't whine about it.

And inevitably, I hear people give me a list of excuses that they call reasons. Sometimes they really are reasons. The current state of the US economy...I'm looking at you. But more often, it's people finding ways around having to do the hard work required to make the changes they want to see.

You have to pick your hard.

This philosophy is a cornerstone of my life. It is also a big part of why I've experienced so much abundance despite abject poverty for most of my adult life. Another cornerstone is a stubbornness that verges on unhealthy. I simply refuse to give up. But I also refuse to do without the things that I want.

Those two principles have created the life we have today.

I've picked my hard.

I've also been willing to change course when something I'm doing isn't working. Because picking your hard doesn't mean choosing something once and then stubbornly beating your head against the wall forever. Sometimes the hard is admitting that the path you picked isn't actually taking you where you want to go.

That's where things get uncomfortable. The shitty thing about picking your hard is that you have to become so undeniably real with yourself that you call yourself on your own bullshit. Radical self-honesty is a requirement for determining whether you have reasons or excuses. Because what is an excuse for one person is a very legitimate reason for someone else.

Confusing, I know. So let's break it down.

Making Excuses

Excuses go a little something like this:

I can't do this thing I want because...

Reasons go a little something like this:

I can't do this thing I want because...

Well fuck.

They're the same thing. And that's the point. The difference isn't necessarily the words you're using. The difference is what happens next.

Excuses stop you.

Reasons create a problem that needs to be solved.

An excuse says, "This is why I can't." And then the conversation ends. A reason says, "This is why I can't right now." And then you start asking, "Okay, so what would have to change?"

That distinction matters because sometimes there genuinely are things standing in our way. Pretending they don't exist doesn't make us more resilient. It just makes us frustrated. The goal isn't to convince yourself that every obstacle is imaginary. The goal is to figure out whether the obstacle is a dead end or a detour.

Losing weight is a big one I see this happening with.

An excuse says:

"I can't lose weight because I don't have money for a gym membership."

The internal dialogue stops there. You sit down and do nothing.

When it's not being used as an excuse, it becomes a back-and-forth dialogue to find a solution.

Why don't I have the money?

Are there areas I can cut back on?

Can I look at thrift stores for weights that are cheaper than buying them new?

Could I walk outside instead?

Do I actually need a gym membership to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish? Do I need help figuring out how to use gym equipment? Am I afraid of going to the gym? Is there something else about this goal that is making it harder for me to start?

Suddenly, "I can't afford a gym" isn't the end of the conversation. It's information. And information gives you something to work with. This doesn't mean every problem has an easy solution. Sometimes you genuinely can't afford something. Sometimes your body, your circumstances, your responsibilities, or your environment create very real limitations. But there is a difference between acknowledging a limitation and using that limitation as permission to stop looking for solutions.

And this is where we run into another favorite excuse: "I don't have time."

Do you not have time, or do you not have capacity?

Time is a big one. So is capacity. But those are two VERY things are very different.

We do not all have the same 24 hours, despite this being one of those motivational phrases people love to throw around. Technically, yes, we all get 24 hours. But the actual demands placed on those 24 hours can be wildly different.

The day of a stay-at-home mom with a newborn is very different from the day of a stay-at-home mom with four kids who are homeschooled while she also owns her own business.

Which is also very different from the day of a working mom whose kids are in school.

Add neurodivergence, chronic stress, caregiving responsibilities, financial stress, sensory overload, poor sleep, or a hundred other variables, and suddenly "you have the same 24 hours as everyone else" becomes a pretty useless piece of advice. What we have capacity for and what we have time for are two entirely different things. They both need to be looked at when we're trying to figure out how to actually show up for ourselves.

Time is arguably the easier of the two. Sit down and time-block your week. Look at where your hours are actually going. How much time do you spend working? Sleeping? Driving? Taking care of kids? Cooking? Cleaning? Scrolling? Running errands? You might discover that you genuinely don't have time for something. Or you might discover that you have three hours every day that you've been spending watching TikTok and wondering why you never get anything done.

Either way, you have information.

Capacity, on the other hand, is an invisible thing. It doesn't come with some magical sign that pops up in front of your face with neon lights saying whether you've got it or not. Maybe someone can invent it now that I'm thinking about it, but that probably verges into the whole microchip-in-the-brain, shit-being-projected-in-front-of-your-eyes, dystopian horror story kinda timeline. Anyway...

Capacity is this invisible force that influences what we are actually capable of doing at any given point in time. And it is one of the biggest contributors to what people often call excuses. I watch it happen over and over again when I'm working with people.

They know what they want to change. They know what they should be doing. They may even know exactly how to do it. But they don't have the capacity to execute it. So they start beating themselves up instead. That's when things get really fucking messy.

It's the moments when you say you don't have time to do something but spend four hours doomscrolling or binge-watching a show. It's the moments when you say you're overwhelmed but have no idea why. It's starting a project and never actually finishing it. It's looking at the pile of laundry, the unopened email, the business project, the workout, the appointment you need to make, and the 47 other things sitting in your brain and feeling like you could scream because you don't even know where to start.

It's a different kind of tired. The kind you can't just push through. And it can be debilitating.

Lack of capacity isn't a character flaw.

If you take nothing else away from this article, let it be that. Lack of capacity is NOT a character flaw.

It is information.

If you consistently don't have the capacity to do the things you want to do, that's something worth investigating. What is draining you? What are you carrying that doesn't actually belong to you? Where are you overcommitted? What responsibilities can be delegated? What expectations can be lowered? What needs to change?

Maybe you need better nutrition. Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe you need to move your body differently. Maybe your job is slowly killing your soul. Maybe you need boundaries. Maybe you need help. Maybe you need to stop trying to maintain a life that was designed around a version of you who no longer exists. Maybe you need to change your environment. Maybe you need to address something that you've been avoiding for years.

Sometimes there may be herbal or nutritional supports that can help. Sometimes there are medical issues that need to be addressed. Sometimes you need a therapist, a doctor, a coach, a friend, or someone to come over and help you clean the fucking kitchen.

There isn't one answer. That's the point.

The first step is figuring out what is actually taking your capacity. Because if you don't know what's draining the battery, you can keep plugging it into the wall and wondering why it never gets above 12%.

And this is where picking your hard comes back into the picture.

You have to pick your hard.

Lack of capacity can be a legitimate reason why you can't do something right now. It doesn't automatically have to become a reason you never do it.

So ask yourself:

What would give me more capacity?

What can I change in my day that would help bring some of that capacity back?

What am I doing that is draining me without actually giving me anything in return?

What is one tiny thing I could change?

Maybe it's changing your diet. Maybe it's getting outside for ten minutes. Even in the hottest parts of summer, I force myself to do this every single morning because it is a non-negotiable for my capacity. Maybe it's finally making the doctor's appointment you've been putting off. Maybe it's asking your partner to take something off your plate. Maybe it's changing jobs. Maybe it's saying no. Maybe it's deleting an app. Maybe it's hiring help. Maybe it's getting rid of the expectation that your house needs to look like a fucking magazine spread when you have four children living in it.

Maybe it's something so small that it barely feels like progress.

Do it anyway.

Small changes compound. You don't have to completely overhaul your life tomorrow. You just have to stop pretending that the life you're living is the only life available to you.

Will it be hard at first?

Oh, fuck yes!!

Anyone telling you that it's easy can go kick rocks. Because for them it might be easy. But you aren't them. And this is your journey. It's okay if it's hard. That's why picking your hard is a way of life.

It's making decisions that might feel impossible but knowing they will serve you long-term. It's choosing the discomfort of setting a boundary instead of the resentment that comes from constantly saying yes. It's choosing to learn something new instead of staying stuck because you're afraid of being bad at it. It's choosing to have the uncomfortable conversation instead of spending six months being pissed off about something you never actually addressed.

It's choosing to change your life instead of repeatedly complaining about the parts of it you hate. And sometimes it's choosing to stay exactly where you are for a little while because changing everything at once would break you. That counts, too.

Picking your hard doesn't mean constantly pushing yourself harder. It means deciding what is worth your energy. It means getting brutally honest about what you want. It means understanding what is actually standing in your way. It means being willing to find another way when the first way doesn't work.

And most importantly, it means building a life that you actually enjoy living.

Not the life your parents wanted for you. Not the life Instagram says you should want. Not the life that looks impressive from the outside.

Yours.

Because if you are actively choosing a way of life that makes you miserable, fix it. Maybe you can't fix it today. Maybe you can't fix all of it. Maybe the first step is tiny and feels almost laughably insignificant.

Fine.

Just start. YOU are in charge of showing up for yourself. Period.

With love,