I am BLOWN AWAY by the response No Excuses November has elicited. This email is going out to 38 people. Yesterday morning, I hadn’t even written the introduction email I sent out yesterday. I didn’t think that so many people, just like me, were tired of making excuses. You are getting this email because you want to make a change in your life. And if you’re my mom, you are getting this email because I shamed you into participating because your 80 year old mother was doing it (hi Mimi!).

No matter the reason you decided to reach out and ask to be added to this list of NoExNos (that’s a working abbrev), you have decided to make November a month without excuses.

Have you thought of what you want to commit to do (or not do) this month? While some of the people I talked to were still undecided about what they wanted to accomplish this month, a LOT of you knew exactly what you needed to do. Like you had been sitting on that ONE thing you keep letting slip away into Excuse Land (the place where dreams go to die). So if you haven’t chosen your goal yet, let your gut decide. Try not to over-think it. Make it simple. Make it tangible. Make it count.

Today someone asked me what the point of this was. Wouldn’t we have the same excuses now that we did two days ago and will have in December?

Yes. We will always have excuses. November isn’t this special, magical month. Unless we make it that way. This month, we are testing what we can do in a month without excuses.

What if you went to the gym even when you were tired? What if you edited your essay until 2 in the morning on a work night? What if you stuck to your running goals even when it was raining? What if you wrote 4 pages of a screenplay with pen and paper because your computer doesn’t have enough memory?

You will always have excuses. But let’s see what happens when we think about why we’re REALLY making them. Are we afraid to fail? Are we afraid to succeed? Are we just lazy? Let this month teach you about WHAT YOU WANT and WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF.

In The War of Art, screenwriter Steven Pressfield wrote:

“The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.”

What are you waiting for?

It’s time to give up on giving up.