1. What are three things you want to accomplish with your life?

Really think about your answer to that for a few minutes, if you don’t already know.

Your list doesn’t have to include things like bringing about world peace or stamping out hunger, but it should include goals that are important to you personally. In other words, your answer should include things you really would like to accomplish before you leave this earth.

Write those things down.

Now, answer the next question:

2. What have you done today to bring yourself closer to accomplishing one or more of those things?

If you can list something, chances are good that you’ll get to where you want to be.

If you can’t, there’s no time like the present to make a change.

I know, you’re busy. But make the time. Get up a half hour earlier. Turn off the internet. Skip your usual lunch. Say no to something that isn’t on your list of important things.

Do what matters, instead of what’s ordinary.

Here’s what they have to say:
 
In America, we know a fair amount about how people get into debt and how difficult it is to get out of it.  We know very little, however, about the people who successfully repaid their debts – what programs actually helped which kinds of people in which kinds of circumstances get out of debt.
 
Different people have different needs and better chances of success if they find a debt reduction method that fits their personality.  Detail-oriented types do well with some programs, but may not respond well to programs that focus on visual cues like savings jars or envelopes.  More creative types may find savings jars motivating but wither under repetitious tasks required by mathematically oriented programs. 
 
For those who are still under the burden of debt, we’d like to develop a tool that, with a few questions can help direct them to an approach that has a high chance of truly helping them (whether the Financial Integrity Program or some other method – we have no agenda in that regard).  The only way we can learn what works is to ask people who have successfully gotten out of debt what worked for them. 
 
We need your help!  Please answer our short confidential survey.  We need to hear from people in every kind of financial situation, whether in debt, out of debt, or never had debt.  You will help us help people in desperate financial straits.  Thank you! 
 
Take the survey here: 
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HKSCQ55
 
For more information on the New Road Map Foundation and the Financial Integrity program, visit www.financialintegrity.org.

Instead, we go with “Ready, fire!” — which is at least better than never getting to “fire!” at all.

Of course we all know that “Ready, aim, fire!” gets the best results, even though the other scenarios are much more common. But they don’t have to be.

How do you make sure you’re on the right track?

First, set a reasonable goal for yourself. (Go ahead and make it a SMART goal, for best results.) Get an idea of exactly where you would like to go, and then figure out what would be the reasonable steps toward getting there. Finally, implement your plan.

For example, maybe you want to buy a house.

Ready

In that case, start by doing a little thinking. What kind of house will you be looking for? What are the things you want it to have for sure, and what are your “nice to haves”? Do some research to see if what you want is feasible at this time, and to figure out what you’ll need to get in place first if it’s not.

Learn what is reasonable for your income, learn what your mortgage options are, and figure out how much of a down payment you might need in order to buy the kind of house you’re looking for. This is the “ready” phase.

Aim

Next, aim toward where you want to be. Decide when you’d like to have the down payment by, and figure up how much you’ll need to set aside (either from your current income or possibly from an extra job) each month in order to get there by your deadline. Find out what you’ll need to do to get the best rate possible.

In other words, see what’s reasonable and sustainable over the period you have in mind, and plan out exactly how you’ll get there — including any changes you may need to make first to your current financial situation.

When you put in the appropriate amount of preparation time, you’re much more likely to discover potential obstacles ahead of time, take them into account, and follow through to completion.

“Fire” by implementing your plan

Depending on where you are right now, implementing your plan to buy a house could start in a variety of places. It could mean using the debt snowball method to get out of debt first so that you’ll be in good shape financially, automating your savings to get that down payment fund built up, or taking a look at the market to see what’s available.

The important thing is to put your plan into action in the right order. If you can’t afford that house today, don’t start by getting a Realtor and putting in offers. “Fire” in the right order, and you’ll have the best shot at long-term success. The same thing is true, of course, no matter what your goal is. Fire when ready, after aiming at the right things.

And according to this Inc. article, as of April 2010 “…the number of items sold on Etsy totaled 1.3 million, and the statistics have been increasing exponentially since its inception in 2005.” So I considered that proof that at least some sellers are able to make money through Etsy.

But could I do it myself?

Putting Etsy to the test

I decided to put Etsy to the test by opening a shop of my own. I had two possible types of handmade items that I could list: paintings and photographs. I decided to start with paintings since I figured my husband would be happy to have a smaller pile of them in the living room if they sold.

For fun, I’ve decided to track my progress there each month for at least 6 months, so this is my first report. (Six months is the length of an item listing.)

Opening my shop

The first step was to spend a little time getting familiar with Etsy’s rules and suggestions. They’ve got instructions on how to open a shop, a detailed set of selling FAQs, and tips from their community. I did a little bit of searching on Google too to see if I could get additional tips.

In the end, I decided to just get my stuff up there, and worry about doing things to promote my shop later. So I opened my shop at the end of December.

This was probably a mistake, but it’s what I did. It was probably a mistake because 1) I opened it right after the holiday season, and 2) the name you sign up with becomes the name of your shop by default. You can change it (once, I believe) but you have to find a name that no one else has ever used on Etsy before. That can take some time. Since I used my own name — which is rather long — my shop name gets cut off when it’s displayed.

Preparation

But before I could open my shop, I had to have photos of what I was selling. I asked my husband if he would shoot them for me. (While I have no trouble shooting creative photos or doing wedding photography, I’m just not very good at product photography. I don’t have the patience for it, mostly.) So he was kind enough to haul my paintings out and get the photography end taken care of.

If you don’t have access to a photographer, and aren’t good at it yourself, that would be something you’d either have to hire out or learn, because having good photos of your product is critical.

Once he got me the photos, I spent a few hours editing them so that the colors came as close as possible to the colors on my actual paintings. I also sprang for a couple of stock photos of home interiors from iStockPhoto.com that I could use to provide an idea of how each painting might look on a wall. I came up with 5 versions of the best photo for each painting. In all, I would say I spent about an hour per painting prepping them for listing.

Listing the items

Listing the items was relatively easy, but I did spend a bit of time seeing how other people listed their paintings and working at accurately describing each item. I would say I spent about 30 minutes per item getting them listed and getting the photos uploaded.

The waiting begins

Then of course, I sat back to wait. I wanted to mimic the experience of a typical Etsy seller, and that’s what I figured most people would do. My items got a few views, and a few “hearts”, and a few people marked my shop as a favorite, but that was all that happened.

I then deliberately made another typical newbie seller move, and paid $7 to feature my shop for one day in the slider that appears at the top of each category. I had read that people typically did not see increased sales from that, but would see increased views. In my case, I saw neither.

January’s results

My results so far?

$9 spent.
$0 earned.
1 shop category.
7 shop admirers.
9 items listed.
145 total item views.
11 total item admirers.

We’ll see how things go by the end of February.

Do you have an Etsy store? How has it gone for you?

First, there are the financial risks — things like not preparing an adequate emergency fund or not carrying health insurance. What happens if you lose your job or get sick? That sort of financial risk taking can leave you broke and unable to get the things you need in short order.

Then there are the more subtle risks — like sticking with the same job for years even though it’s not what you want to be doing, and not paying you what you’re worth. That’s the kind of risk taking that I want to talk about today.

Stepping on the path

Don’t let fear keep you from doing the kind of risk taking that could really make a difference in your life. This quote from Amber Naslund spells out exactly what I mean:

Sometimes you need to step on the path before you know where it’s going to lead.

If you want to do something that’s important to you — whether that’s starting a side business or moving to a foreign country, you’ve got to understand that you’re probably going to encounter things you didn’t expect. There’s no way to prepare in advance for everything that might happen.

There is no perfect

There is no being perfectly prepared, for anything. Prepare as best you can for the things you want to do, and then go do them. Of course there is a chance that you might fail. That’s a part of risk taking. But there’s also a chance that you will succeed, and if you’ve done your research and gotten yourself in good shape for what you think you can expect, that leaves taking action.

Don’t let the fear of failure keep you from success. Prepare reasonably, and then step on the path.

In other words, it feels restrictive, and like a chore.

But tracking your spending can change your life. That’s because the real purpose of tracking your spending is to give you insight into what you’re actually doing (instead of what you think you’re doing.)

That can shock you into action.

An example

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A few weeks ago, I started using a pedometer. For the first week, I just went about my days like normal, and made a note of the number of steps at the end of each day. My goal was to see what was a typical number of steps for me.

It turned out that I was walking anywhere from 2000-2500 steps a day. Which puts me in the sedentary range. (Ouch.) But what really got me was the weekend. I had no idea I was such a slug! I didn’t even hit 1,000 steps on that first Saturday.

Sunday, I got up and walked a mile. That’s being shocked into action. (I’m now walking at least 2 miles a day, which is about 4600 steps for me.)

And all it took for me to change was a little bit of tracking.

Tracking your spending is a tool

Like that pedometer, tracking your spending is a tool that can allow you to see what’s going on in your life. You may think that you’re using your money the way you’d planned, but you will only know for sure if you actually check.

And if you find out that you aren’t doing quite what you’d intended with your money, you can use that tool to verify that you’re making the changes you want to make.

Tracking your spending isn’t about being restrictive, or about getting a money-related chore done. Instead, it’s about getting information — and then using that information to help you become successful.

You don’t have to do it forever either, although you might want to because it can actually become fun. At a minimum, I’d suggest doing a little spending checkup once or twice a year.