#MondayMotivation: Find The Reason Or Make The Excuse

Greetings, dear Readers!

Let me tell you something right off the bat - #MondayMotivation is not getting any easier. It isn't all that surprising, if you think about it, because motivation is never easy. Oh, it's easy enough to just regurgitate a motivational message, but to turn generally generic word-vomit into something meaningful - plus my own unique spin - is not something 'easy'. I spent a good amount of time trying to find some kind of inspiration; a message that resonated with me, but that would also resonate with all of you.

And a thought suddenly occurred to me... Why not just skip today's message, and make up for it with an extra special post (whatever that was supposed to mean) next Monday? Everyone has an off day, right? This could be mine. My off day, my day of no writing.

In that moment I had to make a very important decision:

Make An Excuse For Why Not Or Find A Reason Why

Just like that I had my message for today - isn't life weird?


If there's anything you should know about me, it's that I am about as stubborn as an overloaded mule with a serious attitude problem. I wasn't going to just 'give up', no matter what the treacherous part of my mind was offering up as rationale for not writing. Aside from that, I also have plenty of my own reasons why to keep going - and no excuse was going to divert me from my goal. But that's not the case for everyone.

Finding excuses can be so annoyingly easy. Worse still, they all make sense in the moment. 

"It's cold, and I'm tired."
"I deserve a day off."
"It's just this one time. I'll make up for it."
"It's not that important anyway."
"I've got better things to do."
"It's too late anyway; it won't make sense to do it now."

Those are just some of the excuses I came up with - and I'm willing to bed that all of us have made an excuse not to do something today already. Whether it's an excuse not to do a certain piece of work you've been putting off, to why you shouldn't do something in line with your own goals and dreams today. It's unrealistic. You can do it later. Life will wait.

No, grasshopper, it won't. Life waits for no person - it laughs at your excuses and moves right along.

Today, I don't just want to give you a motivational message for the day, or for the week. I want to challenge you - yes, you. You can choose to take my challenge, ignore it, or fail it. I won't know. Newsflash: it doesn't matter whether I know or not. What matters is that you'll know and, believe it or not, it's going to niggle at the back of your mind - like that annoying voice that can offer the best encouragement, or be the cruelest demotivator.

Here's my challenge to you for this week:

Every time you have to do something and make a decision, stop. Focus on your thoughts. Are you making an excuse? If you are, take that excuse for why NOT to do something, and turn it into a reason why you SHOULD.

Get that work done. Do your painting. Write your story. Start your business. Pursue your goals. From the smallest thing to the largest, do it. Who knows? At the end of the week you might just find yourself thinking a little differently. You might be a bit more positive. A bit more motivated. Or you might be looking back and wondering if the week could've gone differently if you looked for the 'Why's' instead of the 'Why not's'.

Either way, I wish you luck - and if you'd like to share your experiences or key Why/Why Not moments of the week with me as it progresses, please post them in the comments below. You deserve to share your moments of triumph - big or small.


Until Next Week!