I’m writing a new book right now. It’s fan fiction for the Val Kilmer movie, “The Saint.” In it, super spy Simon Templar has to rescue a scientist (played by Elisabeth Shue) who has invented dinosaurs. A Russian politician has been sent from the future to kill her. It’s a Jurassic Park/Back to the Future/Terminator/Saint mashup.

At the end Kilmer will dump her because she broke Ralph Macchio’s heart at the beginning of Karate Kid II. How you going to leave a guy right after he’s just swept the All Valley Karate Championships? Ladies, back me up on this point. No way do you end the relationship at that moment. You’re dating the champ!

That’s actually how Jenny and I started dating. I was fresh off a huge Kung Fu victory. There was a lot of buzz around town about my dojo abilities and Jenny just kind of got swept up into it.

That’s not exactly what happened, but this next thing is very true and this transition is very thin.

A few months ago I had a conversation with my wife Jenny at our dinner table. Here’s how it went:

Me: I’m too afraid to write this book.

Jenny: No, you’re too lazy, but fear is fun to blame because then it’s not your fault.

Grenade.

If you’re hiding from your work, it’s easier to blame fear than it is to admit you’re lazy.

[Tweet “If you’re hiding from your work, it’s easier to blame fear than it is to admit you’re lazy.”]

Fear is a force outside of you. Some evil beast from the shadows hell bent on stopping you from a goal.

Laziness lives a lot closer to home. Laziness is inside us and to face it means you give up your victim status.

When you do that, you take responsibility for your actions. That’s scary at first because blaming others is easier than owning things yourself. But when you own problems, you get to fix them.

[Tweet “The longer you blame others for your problems the less time you have to work on your solution.”]

So instead of pretending I was afraid, I admitted I was lazy and got to work on my book.

I turned in a 30,000 word outline for it last week.

To put that in context, Do Over was a 70,000 word book. An outline is usually 2,000 words but when you deal with laziness it’s amazing what you can do.

Today, be honest with yourself.

Have you been blaming fear for your lack of hustle?

Has a little bit of laziness slipped into your week?

It’s fun to be the victim at first because it’s so easy.

All you have to do is point the finger.

But your hands were meant for a lot more than that.