The Cul-de-Sac of 'I Can't'

Why do we deny ourselves the gift of possibility?

Eleven years ago, I was in the raptor’s grip of a psychotic break.

It felt like my sanity was being drawn and quartered, ripped apart from opposing directions—from my family, my friends, myself and, most brutally, from the man who had been physically, mentally and emotionally abusing me for the previous two years.

I remember, and will likely forever, screaming inconsolably at my mother, at a moment when she was trying desperately to comprehend my incomprehensible refusal to quit a relationship that threatened my life. The words themselves choked me as they spewed, venomous. Suicidal.

I… CAN’T.

These were words of both declaration and defeat. I absolutely believed what I was saying, and the feelings that prompted the words, but…

I was also wrong.

Quantum leap, a lifetime into the future, and three days ago.

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A client of mine (I’m also a personal development coach) recently shared with me those same words. Her use of them couldn’t have been more contextually different, though her adamancy came, surprisingly to me, from a similar place.

I just can’t ______. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t work for me.

I can’t.

There was no desperation, no psychological crisis. There was, however, a similar closing of a door.

I didn’t actually explore this with her at the time, as we had other (and in her case, prioritized) threads to follow, but I thought about it later. And again, and again and again.

We all say it, and just as many of us believe it when we say it; just like my client did, just like I did eleven years ago.

When my clients use this language, my first order of business is to challenge them on it. The challenge itself is always particular and appropriate to their situation and involves bringing some additional awareness to why they ‘believe’ this about themselves.

There are all kinds of known mechanisms involved here. I’m not going to get too deep into them (because let’s partner up!), but the basic forces shutting the doors to possibility are these:

📶 Internal Chatter: Those infernal and inexhaustible voices in our heads that are masterfully adept at influencing our decisions.

🔁 Assumptions: The expectation that because something happened a certain way once, it will happen the exact same way in the future.

🎦 Interpretations: The stories we tell ourselves, and believe to be true, about who, what, when, how and why.

🔣 Limiting Beliefs: Perhaps the most insidious of the bunch, these are the stereotypes we create and assign to ourselves, others and our world at large.

Building awareness around these obstacle-builders is key, it’s powerful, and it often leads to big stuff. Big GOOD stuff. But my thinking on this took a slightly different turn this last week when circling around what we’re actually talking about when we say, to either ourselves or others, that we can’t.

Is it really that we can’t do a thing, or… that we won’t?

In the most literal sense, saying we ‘can not’ is the opposite of saying we can.

When we believe or say we can do something, we’re copping to an ability of some kind, that we possess a skill or have acquired the necessary knowledge to be able to complete an action.

It follows then, that when we say we can’t, what we’re actually admitting is (in a factual, buttoned-collar-with-tie, traditional verb way) that we don’t possess that skill nor have we acquired the necessary knowledge to be able to complete an action.

You may already see what I’m digging for, but hang on.

We so often use these words as an end point, as a terminus to action versus an indication of the need for a new or different action.

‘Can’t’ is a refusal. A dead end.

But modal verbs, people. ‘Can’ AND it’s polar twin ‘can’t’ are both completely HYPOTHETICAL.

What we’re most often really saying, to others, but most detrimentally to ourselves, is that we won’t. We’re making a decision, to do or not do (or in it’s future iteration, will do or will not do).

We’re saying we won’t take the time necessary to learn, to develop, to take the inevitable failures and convert them to skill, let alone mastery.

When we say we can’t, we may in fact lack the skill or knowledge at that particular moment in time, but ‘I can’t’ is very rarely followed by the word ‘yet.’

Let that sink in for a second.

When have you ever said the words (and, BTW, I’m not sure I HAVE),

‘I can’t… yet.’

And to all the parents out there, this last poke in the eye is for you. 🫣 How did you respond to your kids’ endless summer that was ‘I can’t’? I’m willing to bet my official ICF Coach lapel pin on you having responded with something like,

‘You can, sweetest. You just haven’t learned how yet.’

Are we really so cruel to ourselves that we can’t offer the same encouragement we have and will always give freely to our children? To our friends, direct reports, students, family members??

Let’s try something new together.

The next time the words ‘I can’t’ sneak into your brain and maybe even escape from your body, chase them down. They forgot something super important, like leaving the house without shoes.