This post is a long one so get ready. If you don’t feel like getting a sharp kick on the butt, don’t read this. If you know you NEED a kick in the butt, read on!

Any of the below sound familiar?

I’m busy.

I’m tired.

I don’t have any time.

I need to relax for a change.

I’ll do it later.

I have to clean the house first.

I have to get right with God first.

I have to organize first.

My head hurts.

My stomach hurts.

I’m cold.

I’m hungry.

The list goes on and on and on. Those are all excuses. Each of those excuses are reasons I’ve used again and again to NOT do something. Notice none of those are reasons, however. What are your excuses? What is your fake reasoning for why you didn’t write today, or all week or haven’t written in a month or longer?

You know what my main biggest hitting excuse is?

I DON’T FEEL LIKE IT.

The list above are easy, and sometimes I can get around them. If I’m too tired, I’ll let myself take a nap and then I get back to work. If I really need to organize, then I’ll clean up my room or workspace and go back to writing. My head or stomach hurts, I’ll take pain meds, rest until they kick in, and go back to writing.

But if I don’t FEEL like doing it…well then…then I guess  I won’t write for however long it takes to me FEEL like writing.

Let me tell you, if you wait to feel like doing anything, you’ll never do it. Because you’ll never feel like doing it. I don’t feel like writing this blog post. I haven’t felt like writing blog posts for days, and that’s why there’s been no updates.

What is it that you don’t feel like doing? Mainly if its something you shouldn’t be avoiding but you are anyway because you don’t feel like doing it or reading it or making it or acknowledging it?

What is the excuse you keep talking about that stops you from doing whatever it is that needs doing?

Your excuses will kill your dreams. I’m sitting here killing my own dreams, because I wrote one sentence on Zippy Mae and the Seven Kingdoms yesterday.

I can assure you, and myself, that writing one sentence every few days or so will NEVER get that book finished. Ever. Maybe in one hundred years…but who’s got one hundred years to waste like that?

I don’t. And you don’t either.

I want to point out there is a difference between reasons and excuses, a big one. If you check the dictionary, reasons and excuses are defined the same way.

Reason: a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.

Excuse: a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.

Yet! There is a big difference between reason and excuse. Reasons are legitimate, and excuses are not. Let’s try an example, and we’ll use a fairly simple health example.

Why haven’t you written anything today?

A reason is: I broke my hand and can’t use my fingers.

An excuse is: I don’t have time.

Yes, I don’t have time is an excuse. There is 24 HOURS every day. If you’re spending 14 of those hours sleeping, then yes, very much yes, you have time. Out of those 24 hours, if you have to sit down and carve out a five minute section to write a paragraph, then do that.

Excuses will kill your dreams. If you have a memoir you want to write, if there’s an epic poem crying to come out of you, if you’ve got great ideas for your own blog, if you know you’ve got the best novel waiting to be written THEN DO IT.

No matter what it takes.

I’m saying the same thing to myself.

You have to kill the excuses before they kill you and your dreams!

I’ll end this post here, and wrap up by saying that if you really want to get anything done, you’ll really have to just do it. There’s no avoiding it. Unless you decide to never do it and let your dreams, and yourself, die.

Have a good day today, because your time is limited! Don’t waste it!

And as always, while I write my cat Aomine keeps me company by my side.