No Excuses

I still remember something that happened at a writing conference I attended a few years ago. When asked what the most important thing an aspiring writer can do, one of the panelists answered: “Cancel Facebook.”

A few people in the crowd chuckled, but one of the other panelists disagreed, saying that you need the social networking sites to market your work. The first panelist shrugged and said something along the lines of “well, you what I mean…”

And those of us in the audience who agreed with him knew exactly what he meant. His point wasn’t that everyone needs to actually cancel Facebook, but to cancel whatever your top distraction is.

And it was a damn good point.

When you realize what it is in your life that you’re supposed to be doing, you’ve got to grow up, shut off the distractions, and do it. Make no more excuses.

I recently read this quote by George Washington Carver:

99% of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.

How could anyone disagree with that?

You’re never going to achieve your goals if you continue to hide behind your excuses.

How could you possibly have time to write when you have a full time job and a family, right? Wrong!

But I have an hour-long commute to work every day. Too bad!

Life is hard. The path to success is even harder.

The ones who make it–the ones who escape the rat race of modern American middle class life–are the ones who don’t give up. They’re the ones who make an internal promise to succeed, regardless of the time or hard work it takes.

And they certainly won’t be telling you that “they don’t have the time to follow their dreams” one moment and then talking about that Bruce Jenner interview in the next.

Image by One Way Stock