Fighting the nemesis of success

There are no less than 15 great reasons why I should NOT be writing this post right now. But none of them will help me become a writer that regularly and reliably helps people discover more potential in their lives.

Photo courtesy of Joe Newman at Flickr.com

And tonight, after getting home late from a wedding rehearsal, I feel exhausted. My body is tired, my mind is wiped, and there's nothing I'd like to do more than make a good excuse for not writing anything and to go play video games instead. But that won't do and here's why.

Making excuses has never done anyone any good.

People don't write books, or give talks about all the things that excuses can do for your life. There are no award winning films about heroes and heroins who realized how much easier it would be to stay home and chillax.

How do you think Lord of the Rings would have turned out if Frodo had realized how much easier it would have been to pawn the ring and have Gandalf teach him how to blow smoke boats instead of traversing the most dangerous parts of Middle Earth?

For reasons we all understand, making excuses and giving up on our dreams feels like a really good idea at times. Like giving up on eating right when we're really hungry, or caving on our healthy relationship boundaries when things get really emotional, or spending regular time with God when we're really busy. But there's just one problem -

Excuses don't just keep us from success, they make things worse. They are the nemesis of success.

When we give up on eating well it doesn't just keep us from reaching our weight goals, it actually sends our waist line in the opposite direction. When we drop our relational boundaries because things are emotional, the tension in our relationships gets bigger and bigger. And when we compromise on personal time with God, we're actually feeding the part of ourselves that we wish God would overcome.

And for me, right now, giving into the temptation to put writing aside would keep me from engaging with an audience that I highly value (you). And it would keep me from searching for more potential within myself. So tonight, as the excuses dance around in the back of my head, I'm here to fight it out.

What about you? What one thing are you working to overcome excuses and become more disciplined? Chime in in the comment section below.

Warmly,
Tim