Three Excuses You Make and How to Reverse-Engineer Them

You have the best of intentions for practicing, creating, spending time doing what you love most. But for whatever reason, you find yourself procrastinating or letting the negative critical voices in your head stop you from taking action.

Sometimes the harder we fight these critical voices inside of us, the louder they get. We find ourselves arguing for our limitations. Adamantly making our point with ourselves of why we should delay taking action we become like a persistent, tantrum throwing child, unable to regain balance or be reasonable with ourselves.

So, I decided to have some fun with this. Instead of attempting to push through or ignore the negative excuses, we are going to reverse engineer them. A sort of creativity Jiu-jitsu if you will;)

Below are three common excuses you might make to not practice, not create, not take action with a reverse engineered remedy for each one.

Is this what your self-critical voice is telling you? Ok, then try this!

The Limitations Excuse I can't do it. I don't have the space to work on this. Reverse Engineer Remedy Confine yourself even more. Don't think you have enough space? Challenge yourself to work in half of that space. Don't have room to practice in your living room? Try practicing in your closet. Shut your shower curtain and pretend you're in your own audio booth. Mark out a square around your feet that you can just stand in and challenge yourself to make it happen, however you can, in that tiny space. The "Not Good Enough" Excuse I'm afraid that my stuff isn't good enough. What if it doesn't turn out good? Reverse Engineer Remedy Make a bad piece. Think about what you think makes a terrible piece and then work all of those things together. In order for this to work, you'll need to play full out making your upmost crappiest work. Really commit to making something truly terrible and you might even be surprised by the end result. The "It Doesn't Matter" Excuse No one wants what I have to offer. It feels pointless to practice, create, or work on it. Reverse Engineer Remedy Make a piece as a gift for someone. Find a person you care about, or perhaps someone you can tell could use something uplifting or might enjoy a surprise and then make a piece for them as a gift. Tune into that person and then imagine what they might be needing or desiring then turn that into an artistic expression. Present it to them as a gift. Why don't you pick one of these excuses above that fits your mindset right now and give it a try? Have fun with this and remember that creativity often works on its own timeline, but you do have to show up for it in order for it to happen.