Pushing through the wall of 'but'

Happy Monday,

I am thrilled to see so many new people this week. In tracking my blog hits we had one of our bigger weeks for new people last week. [You ARE tracking your blog traffic, aren't you?] I'm excited to see so many new faces.

I received an invitation to be a part of the Carnival of Christian Writers Blog Carnival this month. It was wonderful to be INVITED rather than asking. No matter how many times I receive an unsolicited invitation I still get excited, and humbled. If you'd like to read a few of the other people included in the blog carnival follow this link. If you're from the carnival, welcome. I hope you'll peruse the other postings here.

Today I want to share something with you that occurred to me last night. It was 1:40am and I was brushing my teeth to go to bed. I had just received a really sweet email from someone who recently discovered our blog. I was thinking how best to answer that person's question and suddenly my fertile writer's mind started running.

As many of you know, I do public speaking as well as coaching writers. One thing I hear nearly every time I am with a group of writers is

"I would BUT..."

This is always followed by a list of reasons why achieving their dream is impossible, or at least improbable.

The reason this popped in my brain last night is I had been discussing exactly this topic with my 4 girls before they went to bed. At church yesterday my pastor was teaching on a familiar verse from Matthew 7:7-8. That verse says "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you." The point our pastor made was the need for perseverance. I was explaining to my girls that, whatever we do, we really need to be willing to push through the difficult times. My girls [who are now 9, 7, 7 and 5] have seen some difficult times these last 3 years as those of you who read my series of blogs "How I got here" know.

As I was telling my girls about the need to work hard and never give up, I started to look at my own work.

I became successful once I found my reason to work. Then "I would BUT..." was transformed to-

I will because...

Wow. That hit me between the eyes last night. Suddenly the fatigue that I was feeling last night was gone and this thought came.

"Until your reason to succeed is more precious to you than your excuse to fail you'll never move forward."

You MUST have a why, then you'll find a how.

Maybe your kids want to go to camp and the only way you'll be able to afford it is by selling one more article.

Or you might have a powerful story that won't let go of you no matter what you're doing.

Or you might have clients that are relying on you to finish their project.

Whatever your WHY is, until it is stronger than the excuses you'll never move forward. You'll never make progress.

So look at your WHY, find your HOW, and push through the wall of BUT.

I'll see you tomorrow. I have writing to do now.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter