A friend told me once “I don’t like to give excuses, but I do believe in sharing the reasons why if something goes wrong”. When you’re late, miss a deadline, or let your writing practice slip…ask why.

Is there a distinction between the two? I’ve been trying to tease this out and this is what i have so far…

Excuses sound like: “I didn’t know what to write” or “I had writers block”.

Reasons sound like: “I just spent 3 weeks remodeling a new house and moving across state lines in the middle of a pandemic and didn’t have office space until last week” or “My computer blew up and I couldn’t afford a new one”.

Even the reasons still feel like excuses to me, in a sense, but the only difference I’ve seen (since I am giving myself permission to go easy on myself for missing writing for a solid month because I actually was moving and remodeling a fixer-upper farmhouse) is that excuses fall in the line of “I could have shown up today, but I didn’t”.

And before I dive into a shame spiral of “Alexa, you could have shown up and written while remodeling and moving” (altho pretty sure I would have lost my tiny mind) it’s obvious you must know your limits and factor that into this equation.

You can’t do your best work if you burn yourself out.

So, here we are again. Back at day 1, and excited to see where this next streak takes me.

How about you, how is your practice going? Whether yoga, writing, giving up coffee or quitting booze…it all starts with day 1. The best thing you can do is just pick today and make it #1.