E69 Transcript
We've spent two weeks now looking at some fairly uncomfortable territory. First we examined the difference between what you say you value and what your decisions actually reveal. Then we questioned where your definition of success actually came from - and whether it's genuinely yours or something you absorbed without ever consciously choosing it.
Both of those conversations required a particular kind of honesty. This week the honesty gets a little more personal.
Because this week we're going to talk about the stories you're telling yourself about why you can't move forward. And more specifically - whether those stories are actually true. I'll warn you the same way I have the last two weeks. This one is going to be uncomfortable in places. That's deliberate.
The question we’re going to get underneath this week is a simple one. Is what you're calling a reason actually a reason? Or is it something else - wearing a reason's clothes?
Let's get into it.
Every maker has a list. Not the list of things they're working on - the other list. The things they haven't done yet. Haven't started. Haven't finished. The projects still in the planning stage after two years. The skills they've been meaning to develop. The work they keep saying they'll get to when the time is right.
And next to every item on that list, there is a reason.
Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough skill yet. Not the right circumstances. Not quite ready. Waiting for one more thing to fall into place before it makes sense to begin.
These reasons often feel true. That's the thing about them. They have the weight and texture of fact. They show up in complete sentences with logical structures. They reference real things - actual constraints, genuine limitations, circumstances that are not entirely in your control. And some of them - I want to be clear about this from the start - some of them genuinely are facts. Legitimate obstacles that deserve to be taken seriously and worked around thoughtfully.
But some of them are not facts. They're stories. Carefully constructed, internally consistent, completely convincing stories. And the problem - the real problem - is that from the inside, a well-constructed story feels exactly like a fact. It has the same weight. The same texture. The same sense of solidity. And unless you have a way to test which is which, you'll treat them all the same. Which means the stories get the same deference as the facts. And nothing moves.
This episode is about learning to tell the difference. Not to pretend constraints don't exist - they do. Not to eliminate resistance or push through everything by sheer force of will. But to stop letting unexamined stories about your own limitations masquerade as legitimate reasons. Because you cannot address a problem you're not being honest about. And you cannot be honest about a problem you've never examined closely enough to see clearly.
We've been doing this kind of examination throughout this series. Two weeks ago we looked at values - what you actually value versus what you perform valuing. Last week we questioned the definition of success you're working from - whether it's genuinely yours or whether you absorbed it from somewhere without noticing. Both of those required you to look closely at something you'd been taking for granted. This principle is the same work, applied to the specific narratives you've built around your own limitations.
Let's start with the word "can't." Because I think it's worth examining how much work that word is doing in most makers' internal vocabulary before we talk about what to do with it.
"I can't find time for this." "I can't afford that right now." "I can't seem to get started on this project." "I can't learn that skill." "I can't show this work yet."
Each of those sounds like a description of reality. A report on the circumstances of the day. Something that's happening to you rather than something you're choosing. And that's precisely why the word "can't" is so useful - and so dangerous. It positions you outside the situation. As an observer of your own constraints rather than a participant in them.
I want to give credit here to a podcast episode that introduced me to a test I've used more times than I can count. Mark McGuinness interviewed a man named Alastair Humphreys - an adventurer and author - and in that conversation Humphreys offered a simple reframe that I have found genuinely useful ever since. When you catch yourself saying "I can't do X because Y" - replace the word "can't" with the phrase "choose not to." And then notice your reaction.
That's it. That's the whole test. But what it reveals can be significant.
There are two possible reactions and they mean very different things.
If the reframe feels accurate - if "I choose not to do X because Y" sits comfortably, without friction, without that internal flinch - then you've identified a legitimate reason. A conscious choice based on real priorities or genuine constraints. "I choose not to spend money on that course right now" feels accurate because you have other financial priorities that genuinely take precedence. That's a real decision made from real information. You can set it aside without guilt and without the nagging feeling that you're avoiding something.
But if the reframe produces discomfort - if something tightens up, if your instinct is to argue with it, if it produces that specific "ouch" feeling that comes when something true gets said out loud - then you've found something worth examining much closer. You've identified a choice you're making but not owning. A story you've been telling yourself that has the structure of a fact but not the substance of one.
And here is the thing I want you to really sit with. The discomfort is the data. It's not a sign that the reframe is unfair or inaccurate. It's a sign that it's true. The "ouch" is the test working exactly as intended.
Let me walk through a few examples so this becomes something practical rather than theoretical.
"I don't have time to work on my creative practice." Reframed: "I choose not to make time for my creative practice." If that produces discomfort - and for most makers it does - then the issue isn't time. Time is being spent somewhere. The honest question is where, and whether that allocation of time reflects your actual values. We talked about that in episode one. This is where these principles start connecting.
"I can't afford to take that course." Reframed: "I choose not to spend money on that course right now." If it feels accurate, it's legitimate - you have other financial priorities. If it produces the ouch, the real issue may be fear of what the course would require of you, or doubt about whether you'd follow through, or something else entirely that has nothing to do with money.
"I don't know how to do X." Reframed: "I choose not to learn how to do X" - or, going one layer deeper - "I choose not to do X because I'm afraid I'll fail at it." That second version is where the real honesty often lives. And it's a very different problem to solve than a knowledge gap.
I want to leave space here for you to think of your own example, and if we were sitting together for coffee, I would. But this being a podcast, the best we can do is hit pause for a sec and think – What’s one thing you've been telling yourself you can't do. Apply the test. Notice what comes up.
Now, if the test is this simple and this effective, you might reasonably ask why more people don't use it. Why do these patterns persist even in capable, self-aware makers who genuinely want to move forward?
I think the answer is worth exploring carefully. Because owning a choice is harder than reporting a constraint.
Let me say that again because – wow does it matter! Owning a choice is harder than reporting a constraint. You see…
"I can't" positions you as someone that circumstances are happening to. You're the observer. The victim of conditions outside your control. There's a certain relief in that position - it removes the weight of responsibility. If I can't, then I'm not choosing poorly. I'm simply limited.
"I choose not to" positions you as someone making decisions. Someone with agency. And having agency means accepting responsibility for where you end up. That is genuinely harder. It's more exposed. It requires looking at yourself clearly and acknowledging that the gap between where you are and where you want to be is, at least in part, a result of choices you've been making.
Most people will do quite a lot to avoid that acknowledgment. Not because they're dishonest or lacking in self-awareness - but because this is a deeply ingrained human tendency. Psychology has a name for it: self-serving attribution. The consistent pattern of attributing our failures and inactions to external circumstances while attributing our successes to our own qualities and choices. It's not a character flaw. It's something researchers find across cultures and contexts. But for a maker trying to build a body of work over time, it's an expensive tendency to leave out there.
And it connects directly to something we talked about in episode two of this series. We discussed how inherited definitions of success become tangled up with identity - how questioning the direction you've been building toward can feel like questioning who you are. The same thing happens with limitations. Maybe more so.
"I've always been disorganized." "I'm just not a disciplined person." "I don't have the kind of brain that handles the business side of things." "I've never been good at finishing what I start."
These begin as observations. Noticing a pattern in your own behavior. But repeated often enough, unexamined long enough, they stop being observations and become identity statements. They move from "I've noticed I tend to do this" to "this is who I am." And once a limitation becomes part of your identity, questioning it doesn't feel like examining a behavior. It feels like questioning yourself. Perhaps a better questions might then be – Is this who I want to be?
There's a concept in psychology called learned helplessness - originally identified in research on depression but applicable much more broadly. When people experience repeated situations where their actions don't seem to produce results, they can arrive at a state where they stop trying - not because trying is impossible, but because they've learned, through repeated experience, that trying doesn't matter. The helplessness isn't real. But it feels real. And it produces the same results as if it were.
The same thing happens with excuse-making. When excuses go unexamined long enough - when "I can't" is accepted as fact often enough - it stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like a fixed condition. "That's just how I am." And once you believe something is fixed, you stop looking for ways around it. You stop testing it. You stop applying the reframe. The excuse has become the identity. And identities are much harder to question than habits.
I have a current example of this in my own work that I want to share - not as a resolved story with a tidy ending, but as something I'm actively working through. I need to re-record the opening sections of several of my courses. The current versions don't reflect my direction the way I need them to, and getting them right matters to me. The obstacle is that I need another person to demonstrate on for some of the technical content. I've had several opportunities that have fallen through. And I'll be honest - there are moments where "I can't get this done" feels like a very reasonable thing to say. The circumstances have genuinely been uncooperative.
But when I apply the reframe - "I choose not to find another solution to this" - it produces immediate discomfort. Because that's not true. I haven't exhausted all the options. I've encountered repeated setbacks and I've allowed those setbacks to slow the problem-solving rather than redirect it. The obstacle is legitimate. The conclusion that nothing can be done is not. Those are two different things. And keeping them separate is exactly what this principle requires.
Now let's talk about what happens when the reframe test produces that ouch - and the instinct is to argue with it rather than uproot it.
Because that's what most people do. The discomfort arrives, and the immediate response is to find reasons why the reframe isn't quite accurate. "Well, it's not really that I'm choosing not to - it's that the circumstances genuinely don't allow it." "I would if I could, but I actually can't." The original framing reasserts itself, slightly reworded, with a bit more justification attached.
I want to offer a quote here from Richard Bach, but I read it in Gay Hendricks’ work. I've come back to this many, many times. He says - "If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them."
Sit with that one for a minute. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.
Because the argument is the acceptance. When you argue that "I can't" is accurate - that "choose not to" doesn't apply - you are agreeing that the situation is fixed and outside your control. And once you've agreed to that, the logical conclusion is that nothing you do will change it. You've handed the wheel to circumstances. And then circumstances will determine where you end up. Not your decisions. Not your effort. Not your choices. Circumstances.
And if that is the case, you must then stop saying – Yes, but I want to do X! I truly want to do “the thing” and accept – even tell yourself – I hereto accept and agree that I never will. End of story.
That is an expensive agreement to make. Particularly for a maker who wants to build something real.
This is the same resistance we've talked about across this series. In episode one it showed up as the resistance to examining what your decisions actually reveal about your values. In episode two it showed up as the resistance to questioning a definition of success that's become tangled with your identity. Here it shows up as the resistance to owning a choice that's more comfortable to call a constraint.
It's the same pattern. Different content, same structure. And that's worth naming clearly. Because once you recognize the pattern - once you can see the resistance for what it is rather than for what it claims to be - it has considerably less power over your decisions.
Here’s another example from my own journey of what happens when you sit with the discomfort rather than argue with it.
When I started building my online business, I had no idea how to make video. None. And I was deeply uncomfortable on camera in a way that was visible - you could see it. The results were bad not just because the technical quality was poor, but because my discomfort was palpable to anyone watching. And I didn't have the resources at that point to pay someone else to handle it.
The easy framing was "I can't do this." The technical skills weren't there. The on-camera comfort wasn't there. The editing knowledge wasn't there. Every version of "I can't" had evidence behind it.
But when I applied the reframe - "I choose not to learn how to do this" - the discomfort was immediate. Because that wasn't true either. I could learn it. It would take time and it would be uncomfortable and the results would be bad for a while. But those are costs, not impossibilities. So I took two weeks and sat with Premiere Pro. I learned everything I needed. Not perfectly - but enough to move forward. And several years later it's not a problem. I move through it efficiently. What felt like a fixed limitation turned out to be a learning curve I hadn't chosen to started yet.
That pattern has repeated enough times now that I've developed a working assumption: if the reframe produces discomfort, I'm probably looking at a learning curve or a fear, not an actual wall. The question shifts from "can I do this" to "what would it actually take, and am I willing to do that?" Those are answerable questions. "I can't" is a dead end.
I want to be careful here to say again what I said at the beginning. Not every constraint is a story. Real limitations exist. Financial constraints are real. Time is finite. Some opportunities genuinely aren't available yet. Some obstacles require workarounds that take time to build. The goal is not to pretend otherwise.
The goal is to be honest about which constraints are real and which ones are stories. Because they require completely different responses. A real constraint requires practical problem-solving - finding the workaround, building the resource, waiting for the right conditions while actively preparing for them. A story requires honesty - examining it clearly, owning the choice it conceals, and then deciding what to actually do with that information.
You can't address the real problem until you've identified which one you're actually dealing with.
So here's the connection I want to make- and where I want to pull all three of these episodes together into something that feels coherent rather than just sequential.
Principle one: know what you actually value. Not what you say you value, not what you perform valuing - what your decisions reveal.
Principle two: question your definition of success. Is it actually yours? Did you choose it consciously, or did you absorb it from a source that may no longer be relevant to who you are now?
Principle three: examine the stories you're telling yourself about why you can't move toward either of those things.
Each of these is a layer of self-honesty. And each one is harder to do if you haven't done the one before it. If you don't know what you actually value, you can't build a definition of success that genuinely reflects those values. And if you don't have an honest definition of success, you can't evaluate whether the stories you're telling yourself about your limitations are keeping you from something that actually matters to you - or from something you were never really building toward in the first place.
That's why this is a series and not just a list. And it's why the download - the ten Principles for a Stronger Creative Practice - is designed to be worked in sequence. The exercises build on each other. Each one assumes you've done the honest work of the previous one. A maker who works through all three of these honestly is operating from a fundamentally different foundation than one who hasn't. Not because they have more talent or more time or more resources. Because they have more accurate information about themselves and their actual situation. And accurate information is what makes good decisions possible.
You cannot solve a problem you're not being honest about having. The stories that are keeping you from the work are, in most cases, solvable - once you've identified them accurately. The reframe test is a starting point. Not a magic fix. Just a tool for seeing more clearly. What you do with what it reveals is entirely up to you.
The download is in the show notes and also at virginialeighstudio.com/learn. All three principles are in there with structured exercises. Work them in order.
Today we talked about the difference between excuses and legitimate reasons - and how to tell which one you're actually dealing with. We introduced the reframe test: replace "I can't" with "I choose not to" and let your reaction tell you what's true. We talked about why owning a choice is harder than reporting a constraint - and why that difficulty keeps capable makers stuck in patterns they could change if they judged them honestly. And we pulled all three episodes together - values, definitions of success, and the stories we tell about our limitations - as layers of the same work, each one building on the last.
The thing I want you to actually do this week - not just think about, but do - is this. Pick one thing you've been telling yourself you can't do. Apply the reframe. Notice your reaction carefully. And then, whatever comes up - don't argue with it. Just sit with it. See what it tells you when you stop defending it.
The download is in the show notes. Principle four is next week. I'll see you then.
