On Excuses and Inconvenient Truths:

My musing of the week is going a little deep, but that’s because I need to give myself a good swift kick in the butt.

I recently followed someone on Twitter who posts a lot of what I like to call Inconvenient Truths.

• Excuses or accomplishments?
  The choice is yours.
• If you have a true passion for writing then you’ll never have to discipline yourself to finish a novel.
• If you need motivation from someone else then you’re not passionate about writing.
  • @jaxon_wolfe 

There are several more, and I picked the ones that aren’t quite so harsh to highlight here.

This guy doesn’t joke around. He’s been successful in the industry just in the last year. (At least he claims that) He has apparently even turned down a book deal from a publisher. I believe him anyway. When I first started following him, he I noticed he handed out a lot of advice to people who asked for it, but recently his feed has turned into pieces of “advice” posted often to the world.

When they started to get harsh, some of them struck a nerve. Especially like the last one that I quoted above.

Maybe it’s a true statement, maybe it’s just a personal opinion. But when I started to hit the reply button and draft my response, I realized that for me personally, I was about to make an excuse. And you know what doesn’t produce results?

EXCUSES.

I’ve always made excuses in my life. I also complain a lot and blame other people for my mistakes (mostly in my head – I don’t verbally blame others). I told myself in college that I couldn’t pull up my GPA because I had to work 2 jobs, but in reality I had plenty of free time. My work study job was in the library. I watched a LOT of Netflix. I had the time to commit to school, I just didn’t.

I did let writing get away from me over the past year or two. I got burnt out by the time I graduated, and I don’t know why I didn’t turn TO writing instead of away from it. And when I finally did get back to it, just in time for NaNoWriMo, I still made excuses!

I would sit behind my laptop while Brad played Assasin’s Creed or Battlefront and let myself get distracted watching him play (and occasionally playing myself) instead of writing. I can blame the vacation all I want, but I could have won NaNo this year if I would have tried harder. If I would have made writing more of a priority. Which, I mean, I know life gets in the way, but if I want to write and if writing is my passion, it SHOULD be a priority!

I’ll say that it isn’t just writing that I feel that I do nothing but make excuses about anymore. There’s also the fact that I want to lose weight. I’ve been complaining about my weight for about 7 months now? Bought a Beachbody program, but never really went 100% on it. I hardly ever work out (because I’m tired – yeah, tired of doing nothing!), and I eat fast food a lot (it’s convenient/I don’t have time to cook).

Making excuses and not taking personal responsibility for things is my biggest weakness.

So, as an add-on to my goals for 2016, I want to work on that. So first thing Monday morning (I’m writing this late Sunday night), I WILL work out, eat a good breakfast, go to work, and when I get home, I WILL sit down and write!

What holds you back from accomplishing your dreams?