Do It Anyway

Following are a list of excuses from my children for procrastinating or avoiding altogether doing required tasks (like homework and chores):

I am exhausted
I have too much homework
I have practice with my team
I am hungry
I have sustained an injury. Examples used: sunburn, bumped head, injured hip (not even kidding)
I have too much to do
I don't have all the supplies I need
My teacher shouldn't make us do this in the first place
Someone else has to do something before I can do my part
It's someone else's responsibility
I shouldn't have to do this at all
I hate having to do this
I have worked really hard this week and deserve to rest/hang out with my friends/sit around in my semi-squalor listening to music 
I don't feel like it

To which my reply is:

"I'm sorry. I understand how frustrating it is to be (fill in with excuse) and still have responsibilities. Sometimes you have to ignore how you feel and do it anyway."

You can spend time planning, organizing, assembling the troops, clearing away potential obstacles, complaining about the situation, blaming other people ... and at the end of the day, you can probably find a million excuses to not do something that's important.

I find (and do my best to set a good example for my kids) that very often thinking and planning less and leaning in quickly DOING more very often changes how I was feeling in the first place.

So though I'd rather be doing things other than laundry, organizing my office and computer files, running loads of torturous errands and vacuuming up absolute masses of dog hair off various pieces of furniture ... today I'm going to remember for whom I'm doing the laundry, how much better I feel when my files and office are organized, how doing these errands today helps avoid emergencies down the road and that those darned dogs bring as much joy as they shed hair.

And I'll ignore the slight wine-induced headache and the lack of time and ...

Do It Anyway.

Happy Weekend Y'all!

*Thatcher maintains he sheds less than Watson. Excess of black dog hair says otherwise. Don't let his cute face above fool you.*