The Biggest Excuse I Hear Creatives Use

and why I’m actively trying to eradicate it from my own mind

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say “that’s too hard” or “it’s harder than I thought” or any variation using the word “hard” and all its past, present, future, iterations I’d be a wealthy woman. I feel like it’s become such a part of our very culture to “it’s too hard” something away that we are desensitized to it. And what exactly does it mean when we say it? I am guilty of this practice so allow me to be the example:

When I say “it’s too hard” what I’m really doing is easing my troubled and crippling mind that is already fraught with sadness in having not been able to accomplish a goal quite the way I wanted to. Saying it was too hard is like releasing myself from that obligation. It’s okay if I didn’t meet my goal, it was too hard anyhow. I feel better. I’ve made my statement to the world and therefore they can’t hold it against me. It wasn’t my fault if it didn’t work. After all, it was too hard.

We are quick to find an easy out from a task we set out to do, knowing full well anything worth having is hard. It’s difficult. It will never be easy? So why try to wave it away like something is too hard and how you are allowed to move on? Not that simple. For me, As I stop using the word hard I also plan on owning up to my inability to commit to the goal. Or the fact that I really didn’t give it my all at the time or stick it out as long as I know I needed to (with consistency) in order to make it work. 

It’s true when they say nothing is impossible and our own biggest obstacle is ourselves. If you want to climb the mountain, even if it takes your entire life to do it, that doesn’t mean you can’t climb it. If you want to write a novel (even if that novel sucks) there is no such thing as “it’s too hard” and that’s the end of that discussion. If you want to be self-published with your own independence financially, no one is stopping you but you and the “it’s too hard” mantra. We all do it. I do it.

I’ve completed five novels and a bunch of other writings in my lifetime and do you know I still battle the, “it’s too hard” phrase to this day. It’s the number one reason why writing a novel to completion still takes me as long as it does. Because it’s too hard and therefore I will go days, weeks, months, without writing. Before I realize the time wasted. I could’ve been writing. I could’ve been studying up on how everyone else does it. Instead, I was too busy contemplating how hard something is so why not just scroll Twitter?

This isn’t meant to call anyone out or be a reprimand on anyone but myself as I know I do this daily. I just woke up one morning and after hearing multiple people say the same phrase it hit me like a ton of bricks that we all need to just stop saying it.

At the end of the day, I don’t mean something is too hard. What I really mean is I’m scared. What if I write it and no one reads it? What if I accomplish my goal and it gets me nowhere? What if I try and try and try for five straight years and where I thought I’d be at the end of those five years isn’t where I am? Instead, I’m in the same spot, with nothing to show for it? I can “what if” myself into the grave if I wanted to. The only problem with the endless “what if” questions that taunt us till we give in to the “it’s too hard” statements is that they create a habit of inaction. I find safety in doing nothing. At least when I do nothing then I have nothing to fear. 

It’s time we punch fear in the face (a mantra echoed in every Think Media YouTube video) and do what we believe in our heart of hearts we were born to do! Because soon we will start believing the lie we tell ourselves that something is too hard and we’ll never accomplish our goals. Of course, it’s hard but we don’t give a crap! Hard means we’re doing right and putting in the work! 

So, while we are punching fear in the face, let’s kick hard in the nutsack and get to work!

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