The Day I Realised the Story Was the Problem

How I stopped explaining my life and started fixing it

There comes a point when you realise you’re not exhausted from doing too much — you’re exhausted from explaining everything. Explaining why things didn’t work. Explaining what went wrong. Explaining who or what is responsible. For months, I had been living inside a story that felt real, justified, and convincing. Parts of it were true. Parts of it weren’t. But all of it distracted me from the one thing that actually mattered: identifying the real problem and doing the work to fix it.

The day I stopped feeding the story was the day I finally had the energy to face the challenge.

The problem itself was simple, even if it was uncomfortable to admit. We couldn’t generate money fast enough, and we couldn’t access money when we needed it. That was it. Everything else — the doubt, the fear, the frustration, the sense of being unlucky or blocked — grew from the story we built around that fact. We explained why the money couldn’t come. Why only small amounts were accessible. Why the timing was wrong. Why someone or something else was responsible. Like all good stories, it needed characters: a villain, a victim, a force beyond our control. And once the story existed, we started living inside it.

That’s the trap. When you live inside the story, you stop working the problem.

Once I separated the story from the problem, something familiar came back to me — not from a book or a podcast, but from the paddock. Years ago, when I first started growing hay, a local bloke said something that stuck: anyone can grow grass, but not many people can grow hay. Grass grows if the rain comes. Hay demands timing, discipline, and standards. Miss the window or ignore the detail and you don’t end up with hay — you end up with grass and an explanation.

That was the moment it clicked. I hadn’t failed because things were hard. I’d failed because I was telling myself stories instead of holding a standard.

Hay doesn’t care about your intentions. It doesn’t care about effort without precision. It doesn’t care about excuses. You either do the work properly or you don’t get paid for it. Life isn’t much different. When you lower the standard and call it “circumstances,” you still get grass — but you don’t get value.

This year wore me down in ways I didn’t expect. Financial pressure bled into everything: spiritually, personally, relationally. I created meaning around the struggle instead of clarity around the task. I told myself it was bad luck, or timing, or external interference. Some of it was real. Much of it wasn’t. But none of it helped. It just kept me tired.

At some point, exhaustion becomes useful. It strips away the drama. It forces honesty. I realised I didn’t need new beliefs, or new motivation, or another explanation. I needed to stop living the narrative and start working in the now.

Working in the now means dealing with what’s in front of you, not what you wish was different. It means accepting discomfort without decorating it with meaning. It means planting seeds even when you don’t know which ones will grow. Outcomes lag. Effort compounds. Waiting breeds doubt.

Health gave me proof of this. Over six weeks, I dropped eight kilos through discipline alone. No tricks. No stories. Just saying no, again and again. I wasn’t perfect. I slipped. I noticed it. I corrected. That’s not failure — that’s process. And process works when stories don’t.

I also realised how much energy is lost trying to manage other people’s thinking. Trying to be understood. Trying to explain. Trying to justify. I had a candid conversation with my partner, Tricia, and she told me I’d kept her stuck with the way I thought. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. But arguing the story wouldn’t help either of us. So I chose something different. I chose to stop feeding it. To work my own process quietly. To focus on standards instead of validation.

That decision alone lifted weight.

So 2026 has a simple theme: Work in the Now.
Not fixing the story.
Not defending the past.
Not predicting outcomes.
Just identifying the challenge and applying effort without drama.

Be challenged. Be uncomfortable. Be curious. You don’t need all the answers. You just don’t need the story. Remove the distractions. Remove the people who don’t listen. Remove the habits that numb instead of build. Ask more of yourself instead of asking the world to change.

Anyone can grow grass.
Very few people grow hay.

The difference isn’t luck.
It’s standards.