The Everyday Excuse That Can Poison Your Potential From The Inside Out

What do you say to protect yourself from change?

“Just don’t go over there tonight,” warned my rightfully concerned roommate, who likely already knew I would ignore her.

“It’s not that easy.” I defended my decision with the excuse I deemed truth. Not meeting up with Mr. Wrong For Me would be difficult. It would require a little self-discipline and a lot more self-respect than I had at the time.

I slipped on my run-down converse and sprinted towards self-destruction. Unfortunately, this happened more than once.

Over time, I began to notice I use a common phrase to avoid making changes I fear: It’s not that easy.

Quit the boy who breaks your heart. It’s not that easy. Stop mistaking attention for affection. It’s not that easy. Make that international move. It’s not that easy. Follow your passion for writing. Not. That. Easy.

I could insert any scenario and end up with the same solution: change often presents itself as a challenge. It’s easy to complain about what we don’t like about our lives and project blame onto others, society, and a laundry list of unfair circumstances. It’s not that easy to place the blame on ourselves.

Why? Because once we take accountability for our behavior and its subsequent effects, we have to stop playing the blame game and decide to change the game. And, of course, it’s not that easy!

The first step to changing your circumstances is believing you can. In Psychology, the belief that you are even capable of change is called having a growth mindset.

When you have a growth mindset, you believe you can develop new skills and abilities through hard work. You give yourself agency which comes hand in hand with responsibility and commitment. Once you create a growth mindset, you have to ditch phrases like, “I am the way I am,” and my personal favorite excuse.

I think you know the one.

Breaking toxic behavior cycles, healing trauma, and making healthier choices are not supposed to be easy feats. The best choices we can make, the ones that transform us from the inside out, are typically the hardest at first. They require sacrifice, self-reflection, and a whole lot of denying what you want when you recognize it’s not what you need.

Once you believe change is possible and recognize it won’t be painless, the final step is trusting you can handle challenges. Nothing I’ve done in my life that I’m proud of came effortlessly: not graduating college early, not moving abroad two weeks later, not learning a second language in my twenties, and not publishing this story despite a lifetime of perfectionism-fueled self-doubt.

If you catch yourself defending self-sabotage by saying change is “not that easy,” I want you to know you are entirely correct. I also want you to trust you don’t need easy.

You also don’t need confidence or certainty to be capable of change. All you need is courage. For me, courage doesn’t look like walking across a tightrope, launching yourself out of an airplane, or free climbing El Capitan. In my eyes, courage doesn’t have a look at all, but it has a whisper.

Courage says, I don’t know if I can do this, but I know I will try. This journey might not be easy, but I won’t ask it to be. I don’t need the easy way out, only some way through.

I’m not inexperienced enough to think reasons always equate excuses, but many times they do. We have to judge for ourselves whether we can’t make certain changes or whether we don’t want to make them.

Do you lack the will or the way?

It’s up to you to spot the difference in your life. For me, anytime I think a change is impossible, it’s usually because I know it won’t be painless or uncomplicated. It won’t be easy.

But when something is not that easy, you can almost be sure it’s worth it. At least that’s what I choose to believe. That’s what gives me hope.

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