I got in trouble with my wife the other day because I responded, “yes, but…” She had an idea about something she wanted me to do. I had a similar idea… “but” I also had additional ideas. It wasn’t that my additional ideas were wrong or bad, it’s just that I presented them in a wrong way.

It wasn’t until a couple days later that I better understood what my wife wanted or needed from me. I was listening to Seth Godin’s new podcast, Akimbo. In his episode titled No Such Thing (As Writer’s Block), he talks about the book The Art of Possibility and how the authors talk about the need to change our “yes, but” to “yes, and.” (My wife doesn’t listen to Seth Godin, so you can see she’s naturally, super smart.)

This is my goal. I don’t want to be a “yes, but” guy. As a little kid, “butt” was a bad word. As an adult, “but” is a bad word. I want to be a “yes, and” guy. By reframing what I want to say by changing one word, I go from being negative to positive.

Every day I set myself a goal to write. To write what? Anything. It’s a very difficult goal in some senses. There are so many things to distract me. Steven Pressefield, in his book The War of Art, calls it Resistance, which can take many different forms – family, friends, TV, the Internet, etc. Ultimately, the form it most often takes is me. I am my greatest Resistance.

It’s me saying “yes, but…” “I need to write for the next hour, but I’m so tired.” Or I say, “but I’m hungry. But I need to check Twitter. But I need to prep for work tomorrow.” I have an unlimited number of excuses, or should I say “yes, buts…”?

So to that I say, “yes, I do have too many excuses, AND I’m going to ignore them and write.”

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