Yeah, but…
Several years ago I was a volunteer mentor to a young woman (I’ll call her “J”) at Pace Center for Girls, Alachua. I would meet with her once a week at lunch, chatting, supporting and getting to know her. We became friends. Pace is an alternative school for middle and high school girls at risk of dropping out of school or entering the juvenile justice program. Girls stay at Pace for up to 24 months until they are ready to graduate or go back to their zoned school.
My job with J was to be a friend, encourager, another positive adult in her life. I brought her lunch each week—usually a Subway sandwich— and we chatted about her life, what brought her to Pace, her likes and dislikes. She was a singer and sign-language performer at her church and she absolutely lit up when she talked about the choir and trips they took to other churches to perform. Her mom was on kidney dialysis, often in and out of the hospital. J missed school quite a bit—I gathered she was the “mom” substitute in the home, cooking dinner, taking care of the housework, making sure things were somewhat stable when her mother was sick.
J had a lot of excuses for not going to school; a lot of excuses for not thinking about what she wanted or what was best for herself. She thought mostly about others, what others needed and how she could please them. She was a pleaser and avoided change or disruption or anything new or different. I encouraged J to pursue her singing and performing—she would never sing for me (although I think she secretly wanted to)— but she was very shy and self-conscious. Whenever I would suggest something small she could do to move in that direction, she would say, “Yeah, but…” and give me some excuse why she couldn’t. Even when I encouraged her to complete her math homework that night after school, she had a, “Yeah, but…” excuse. I invited her one night to come to a choir performance at the high school my daughter attended that was close to her home—and one she was hoping to get into once she caught up at Pace—but she didn’t show.
Our “Yeah, but…” excuses are so automatic that sometimes—especially as an adult—we don’t even hear them anymore. I can make up any excuse not to rock the boat of my world with a last-minute dinner invitation, new way of doing something, or anything that gets me out of my routine and out of my “certain” world in which I am cozy, comfortable in. Don’t throw me a surprise party, ever—it will certainly backfire and leave us both regretting the event. I thrive on knowing what’s going to happen next. It makes me feel safe, secure.
But this kind of thinking, the “Yeah, but…” thinking, doesn’t get you very far in your life when you have goals, dreams, or even a silly “bucket-list.” These things force you to step out of your comfort zone, try new things, challenge certainty and, quite honestly, really live a fulfilled life.
J’s “Yeah, buts…” were so obvious to me and obviously (to me, anyway) one of the reasons she landed at Pace, that it caused me to step back and hear my own “Yeah, buts…” going on in my head, and even the ones I said out loud in conversations with others. I even caught myself providing “Yeah, buts…” to others, like they needed an excuse from me for not doing something!
If acknowledgement is the first step to solving a problem, then I just made a giant leap with recognizing my “Yeah, buts…” and understanding that my negative and limiting self-talk was barring me from moving forward on ANY dream or goal I had. I was stuck and my “Yeah, buts…” were in my way.
Our mind likes certainty. Our mind can only compute, comprehend what it has experienced from the past. Our synapses can only connect thoughts and experiences we’ve had—it can’t comprehend anything new, doesn’t know how. That’s where the “Yeah, buts…” come in. Our mind, when presented with a new opportunity or challenge, takes all our past experiences, thoughts and patterns and computes them into a way to move forward, but ONLY if it already has the experience to relate to. For some reason it tries to “protect” us from the unknown, it creates fears for us to cling to.
I like certainty, too, but I am determined to move forward and experience life the way I believe serves my purpose. Whenever I recognize my own “Yeah, but…”, I am listening and learning to figure out what my limiting belief is, why I think that way, and proactively work to re-program my mind to see past it, knowing it’s just my mind’s way of protecting me.
