Just do the damn thing

​I was sitting in the lobby of my office at the college last week. It was late afternoon; I was slouched back in a comfortable chair. I told our Coordinator of Counseling Services - "this is what I do when I get to the part of my to-do list I just don't feel like doing."

The greater truth is, "don't feel like doing" was just another way of saying I'd gotten to the part of the list I'd made a whole bunch of excuses for.

Running has taught me the absolute truth in what Mel Robbins says - when you just do the damn thing, all of the excuses disappear.

Yesterday morning, I told myself I'd go to the gym at the college when I ran some stuff to my son he'd left here over the weekend. That's always a dangerous conversation. Because over the course of a long day, I can come up with a lot of excuses why running in the evening doesn't sound as good as it sounded the morning when I declared I'd run in the evening.

And sure enough, on the drive over I told myself it's later than I thought it would be. I told myself I don't sleep as well when I run in the evening. I told myself how hungry I was after a long day. I told myself what a hassle it was going to be to have to shower before I drove home.

But this is a routine I've practiced a lot in running: make excuses just do the damn thing - watch the excuses disappear.

I've mastered that routine with my writing as well, but there are a lot of areas in life where I am still struggling with this truth.

I read recently, "the most unprofitable thing ever manufactured is an excuse." It's true - not just financially - but when considering the overall benefit to our lives - excuses are one of the most useless things we do to ourselves.

Because be sure, excuses are something we DO do to ourselves.

When we run, we do running to ourselves. When we don't run because it's too late, we do an excuse to ourselves.

When we get up and write, we do writing to ourselves. When we decide I'll never write anything worth reading today, we do an exscuse to ourselves.

Maybe it's one of our more amazing superpowers? This power to instantly make excuses disappear. I had no less than five of them last night before I ran. When I was done running, they were all gone. Every single one of them. Poof.

The bonus? I had done running to myself.

I felt better. And I didn't have to wrestle all evening with "I should have" or "I wish I had." Because it's not like excuses shut up once you've decided not to do the thing the excuses talked you out of. Excuses like to taunt you after the fact.

They are relentless and evil.

So make them disappear. Today, when you find yourself talking yourself out of something you know you would be better off just doing, well, just do the damn thing.

And then sit back in a comfortable chair and celebrate your magic. Celebrate the poof. Celebrate as you watch one of the things that holds you back most in life go up in smoke.

It's magical, you know. When you get busy doing life - it gets much harder to hear your life trying to talk you out of life.

Today go be living proof of that poof - of that magic. No excuses....