Make it work.

Last week, I talked about the feeling of abandoning yourself when there’s something you feel like you should be doing but you continually avoid doing it.

Today, I want to talk about making it work.

As in…there’s this thing you want to do (be it exercise, writing, drinking more water, etc.) and yet you can find a thousand excuses for why you can’t do it.

I’ve been feeling for the last five years that I should be writing daily. Yet I had some hang ups that I let stop me time and time again. Here were some of my excuses:

If I write in a journal, I won’t always have the journal with me. Then I’ll be out on a walk and the words will start coming to me, and I won’t have anything to write on.
If I write in a really small journal that could fit in my back pocket, I could take it walking but a small journal is a pain to write in. My hand would get tired of writing all cramped!
If I write in a journal every day, I’ll end up with tons of journals that will take up space and I don’t have lots of extra space…nor do I want to be carrying around journals with me every time I move. I’m trying to simplify here!
Okay, so I’ll start a Google Doc and use that. But then I can never find the right Google Doc account (because I have four gmail accounts) and it becomes a bother. Plus, if I don’t have internet access, I can’t do it that day.
So I’ll start a document on my computer desktop. But I don’t want to lug my computer around everywhere!

Are you tired of reading my excuses? I’m tired of typing them, but they could go on forever. There are always more.

And I did start writing over the years, many times. I tried every one of the above options and never stuck with any of them. That’s why I have random pieces of writing in various journals and places on my computer.

But when I decided that I was done with the excuses and that it was time to take action – and stop thinking about taking action – the answer came to me.

And it was simple.

I always have my phone with me. Always.

So one day I grabbed my phone out of my purse, opened up my e-mail, quickly typed out the words in my head, and sent it to myself. The next day, I opened that e-mail, hit reply, typed up some words, and hit send again. It probably took less than 5 minutes.

And I did the same thing the next day and the next.

It didn’t have to be as complicated as I made it. It just had to happen.