I’ve been on an elimination kick lately. There are tons of stuff in my life I want to get rid of to free up time, space, and energy to do what’s truly important to me. I’m getting rid of unwanted items from my house, I’ve deleted most of my game and social media apps from my phone, and I’m eliminating negative self-talk and other negative influences from my life. One of these bad influences is the phrase, “I can’t.”

Why am I trying to nicks the word “can’t” from my vocabulary? Frankly, it’s lazy. When someone says, “they can’t” do something what they typically mean is something completely different. It could be “I don’t want to” or “it’s not a priority right now.” It could mean, “I don’t know how” or “I’m not good at this.” It rarely means, “Under NO circumstance could I, would I, or should I have the ability to do to (fill in the blank here).”

The thing I’ve come to learn is words have meaning. (No shit, Joe, of course they do). What I mean is if you say something to yourself enough times it becomes true. Some people call it “the Secret,” but I call it self-talk. This self-talk can be positive and negative, as I’ve wrote about already, and can have a profound influence on your life. If you call yourself a loser enough times, you’ll become a loser. If you tell yourself you “can’t” do something, it’ll comes true.

Using “can’t” isn’t necessarily an issue if it’s used sparingly but I find people use the word too frequently. Then it’s not a matter of “can” vs “can’t” but “can’t” becomes the default.

I truly believe people can do just about anything they want to do. Sure there are things like becoming President of the United States which are near impossible but on a scale of 1 to becoming the President, most things are possible. Most things we “can’t” do fall into one of two categories: uninteresting or scary. This turns “can’t” into “I don’t wanna!”

When you say, “I can’t” you are lying to yourself and those around you. You might be afraid, busy, or uninterested, but completely unable is highly unlikely.

This is why I’m working on removing “can’t.” First I want to be more honest with those I care about, and second I don’t want to be governed by fear. I want to learn new things. I want to have new experiences. I want to be more present in my life. Unfortunately, I can’t I’m unable to do this with my old way of thinking. I need to change things up a little.

I want to change. I can change. I will change.