You know when you’ve got a bill to pay, or a form to complete or a dentist appointment to make, and you put it off? You put it to one side. “I’ll do that tomorrow/next week,” you tell yourself. But you never do.

We kind of do that with our lives, don’t we?

We wait. For the right moment. For The Motivation to arrive like a green light: GO. For the children to get a little bit older. For the mortgage to be paid off. For the weather to change.

We kid ourselves. “When I’ve lost the weight, I’ll start dating again.” “When the merger happens, if they don’t agree to the salary increase, then I’ll leave.” “I’ll start on January 1st.” “If he does it again, then I’ll definitely tell him it’s over.”

But you won’t. Because you never do. Ever.

Excuse.
After.
Excuse.

You have tonnes of them.

And they feel good, those excuses. Right there in that moment, as you’re tying your shoelaces and you notice it’s pelting down with rain, it feels good to tell yourself that you’ll start running tomorrow. Of course it does. Because it means you don’t have to try. Because it means you don’t have to be uncomfortable. Because it means that you can hit the snooze button one more time.

The excuses keep you safe.

Or, more to the point, they keep you thinking that you’re safe. Because, ha! nothing is safe. Not even your steady job, the one your boss could let you go from with just 4 weeks notice.

We’re born with an inner resistance. It’s evolutionary, it’s hard-wired in our brains. It’s there so that you stay with the pack. It stops you wandering off the path. And the excuses? They’re the faithful servants of the resistance. Doing everything in their power to keep you on the couch with your big dreams and ideas and desires tucked safely inside of you.

“One day” you tell yourself.

But one day never comes.

The year is flying by. You even remarked on it last week to your friends in the pub, “HOW is it August already? Where did the year go?”

But you know where.
(Nowhere).

Until now.

This is a kick up the ass. From me to you.

To go for that fucking run right now. To pick up the phone. To get up from the couch, turn the television off, sit down and write that email. To fill in that form. To make that dentist appointment (and start flossing while you’re at it). To say it. To ask the question. To make the change. To fling yourself at whatever it is that you’ve been resisting.

Go on.

Do it.

“The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, ‘I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’ – Todd Henry