July 16. Freedom from Excuse-itis

Excuses

I recently looked at a list of the most common excuses for not making Creative Ideas happen. It's easy to find reasons for not taking action. We can talk ourselves out of just about anything, validating it with some excuse we feel is legitimate and gives us the ok to drop that creative venture.

Alanis Morissette's Excuses has quite a list of reasons for opting out of doing something and I've used many of these for stalling on some of my own creative projects.

When the excuses come rolling around, I now go through this process to get myself past the reasons I "can't" do it:

• Recognize I am making excuses
• Identify this as a pattern I create for myself because change seems risky
• Invalidate the excuse(s) and tell myself it is ok to move ahead
• Create momentum by beginning with small, achievable goals. Breaking the process down into micro steps can help

• Take action on the micro steps

 

What has been your go-to excuse for not acting on your creative impulses? Free yourself from the limits that excuses create.