The problem is that it’s often hard to create a real picture of the future, especially when you’re extending out a few years or more. Life is full of unexpected twists and turns and sometimes we find ourselves marching down a much different path than we ever expected.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would wind up being a freelance writer so that I could spend lots of time with my three children, I would have looked at you like you were out of your mind.

These two things seem at odds. There’s incredible benefit in working toward a big goal, yet the bigger the goal, the more likely it is that life will sweep it aside for reasons you can’t yet fathom.

So why work for a big goal?

The reason is that the real value of a big goal is in the journey. Any journey you take toward a big goal is going to add positive things to your life. It’s going to bring you positive value in ways you can’t even imagine yet. It’s going to teach you skills. It’s going to build relationships. It’s going to put money in your bank account.

All it takes is a commitment to move toward that goal.

If something happens and the goal becomes unrealistic for some reason, it’s not all for nothing. You’re left with relationships, with money, with skills, with achievements. All of those things provide a strong foundation for whatever it is that you’re going to do next.

Don’t think of your big goals as things that are set in stone. Think of them as a wish list – things you’d like to achieve if your life contines down this same path.

My wish list involves raising three intellectually curious and self-sufficient children. Now, many things could happen that would prevent this, most of which I’d rather not think about. The fact that there is no guarantee that I’ll reach the goal doesn’t mean it’s not a goal worth working towards.

Another item on my wish list involves finishing and publishing a few novels. Again, many things can happen that will brush that goal to the side, but, again, the fact that there’s no guarantee doesn’t mean that it’s not worth moving toward that goal.

I can list many goals like this: building a marriage that’s strong for life, launching a community initiative I’ve been thinking about for a long time, moving to a new home – the list goes on and on. None of these are guaranteed goals.

What they all have in common is this: every step I take toward those goals will improve my life’s situation no matter whether I actually achieve that goal or not.

The goal just gives me something to look forward to. It’s a possible future – one that I want quite a lot and one that I’m willing to work today to achieve.

Yes, life might not lead me to those things on my wish list, but I get value out of every moment I spend working toward those goals.

So will you. What’s on your wish list? Every step you take toward those things will help your life, regardless of whether or not you actually make it there.

The only sure way to fail is to never start.

The post Your Wish List appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Would you like to have some debts paid off? Maybe you dream of having finished an art project or a major home improvement project. Perhaps you dream of having a social circle to participate in.

We all have things we’d love to accomplish, things that are a bit more real than a daydream but still far away from reality. I certainly have a long list of those things.

Lately, I’ve been trying a new approach for these types of dreams and I’ve found that it works out really well, at least for me. In fact, I’ve had enough success with it that I feel like sharing it with you.

I call it “The Year-Long Plot.” It’s pretty straightforward. All you do is plot out a detailed plan, week by week, of how you’ll move from where you’re at right now to the goal you want to achieve in one year.

Let’s say you want to pay off a $5,000 debt in the next year. The route to get there involves coming up with $100 a week, which will add up to $5,200 over the course of a year.

So, you make that your weekly goal. “This week, I’m going to scrounge together $100 and use it as an extra debt payment at the end of the month.”

How will you do it? All you really have to worry about is that week. If you carry forward with your goal of coming up with that $100 in that week, and you just repeat that goal over and over and over again, you’re going to pay off that big debt in its entirety.

The entire process becomes a simple goal you can achieve in one week.

The focus then becomes how to pull off that week-long goal. Nothing else matters but that week-long goal. Your mission is solely to figure out how to save $100 through your actions this week. You can eat cheap. You can skip some entertainment. You can figure out some longer-term savings so that the $100 is easier to come by in future weeks. It’s all about this week and what you can accomplish during it.

Let’s look at another example. Let’s say you want to write a novel of a length around 200,000 words. If you write 5,000 words a week, you’ll have that first draft done in forty weeks.

So, let’s start with that goal. Your goal, each and every week, is to get 5,000 words down in your first draft. That’s your sole goal. You can spend the first week or two making an outline, and then spend the last several weeks editing and revising that first draft.

You can make very specific and detailed plans, too. Have you dreamed of refinishing your kitchen? Get a home improvement book, learn about the process, and start building a one-year timeline with specific plans for each week (with a few weeks of breathing room, of course). Have you wanted to read some of the great books of literature? Pick out twelve of them and develop a one-year reading plan for them.

The whole goal is to break it down into something you can do this week. When it’s a small goal to achieve in a week, it’s far more achievable than a giant goal that looms too large to ever give it a shot.

The post The Year-Long Plot appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

The best way to explain how I do this is to just pull some examples from my own life.

I use the web service Remember the Milk to manage all of the projects and goals I’m currently trying to reach in my life. All told, there are about fifteen or so going on at once.

At the end of each and every day (at least, days when I’m not traveling or something like that – and even on those days, I do that to a certain extent), I’ll go to that list of projects and goals. For each and every one, I’ll simply ask myself what I could do tomorrow to move forward in some way on that goal.

One of my goals, for example, is to finish up this high fantasy novel I’ve been working on for a long while. When I look at that goal, I usually just add the item “Write 500 words on the novel” to my checklist for tomorrow.

Another goal, one that’s much more of a long-term goal, is to raise intellectually curious children. When I look at that goal, I’ll add something to my list like “Have one intellectually challenging conversation with each child” to my checklist.

Some things I add to the list take devoted time that I need to set aside. Other things, like having a daily goal of walking a number of steps, is at least partially accomplished simply by living my life in a healthy fashion.

This works really well for me. Getting through that daily checklist feels like a real accomplishment – and I feel really good about moving forward on so many projects and goals in my life. I usually feel like a day has gone well if I manage to get through that list.

Of course, I don’t always accomplish everything on my checklist. If that happens, I don’t panic. I just make a note of it somewhere – I actually just keep a separate list of to-do tasks that I didn’t manage to finish. At the end of the week, I’ll sit down and look at that list of unfinished steps and ask myself why I failed to achieve those steps. This will sometimes help me to remake goals that aren’t going well for some reason.

So, how can you achieve this same thing?

The first thing you need to do is to set down some specific goals and projects for yourself. What do you want to accomplish in the next six months? The next year? The next five years, or ten years? Make a list of those goals. It can be as ambitious or unambitious as you wish.

I’d also suggest that, for each of those goals, you spend some time researching and thinking about what you’d actually need to go through to achieve that goal. Try to understand how that goal or project breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Once you’ve got those goals and projects and you’ve assessed some sort of plan for achieving them, end every day by making a to-do list for tomorrow. Assess each of those items and identify a single action you can take to move you forward in some way toward that goal. Add it to a checklist for tomorrow. Make an effort to keep those single actions very clear and quite small. Ideally they should be things you can do that will fill in little time gaps during the day with only a few things that require you to put aside time for them. Then, at the start of the day, grab that checklist and take it with you. Make it your goal to get through that checklist.

You will feel a very nice sense of achievement if you do. Even better, if you keep doing this as part of a routine, you will make forward progress on every big goal and project in your life. You’ll achieve lots of things that you’d simply put out of mind because they seemed “too big.”

The post Connecting Big Projects and Goals to Today appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Actually, I believe that today is the only day that really matters.

Today is the only day you have to be sure that you’re moving forward on your goals. Right now is the only moment you have to actually choose to spend less money or to get some exercise or to start writing that novel.

The moment you choose to say that your goal can wait until tomorrow is the moment you give up on your goal.

Right now, think of every significant goal you have in your life. Are you seeking debt freedom? Are you seeking financial independence? Maybe you’re trying to lose weight or finish a big creative work.

Whatever it is, ask yourself what you can do today to move forward on each of those goals.

Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today.

Some of those choices might be active, like sitting down to add 1,000 words to your novel. Other choices might be more passive, like choosing not to spend money on something frivolous and instead banking that money.

Personally, I use a checklist. I have a number of ongoing goals and projects and I make sure to add at least one action item from each of these goals and projects to today’s “to-do” checklist. (I use Remember the Milk to manage all of these projects and goals and extract daily tasks from them.)

I find that when I make forward progress on all of my projects and goals on a given day, I feel great at the end of the day. On days when I make little progress, I go to sleep feeling as though something has slipped through my hands.

Whenever I hear people talking about how they should essentially waste today because “you only live once,” I actually just hear people making excuses to avoid achieving anything. Using “you’ll only be young once” or “I can do it tomorrow” as a reason not to move forward on your goals means that you’re not committed to moving forward on them.

Every day you don’t work toward your goals is a day lost.

Today matters.

The post Today Matters. Nothing Else Does. appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Some of them simply strive for debt freedom and a decent emergency fund, then they want to stock their retirement accounts. Some would like to retire as early as possible. Others want to become genuinely wealthy for various reasons.

These goals aren’t standalone goals. They’re on something of a spectrum. I know a person who wants to retire just a bit early, but mostly wants to move on to a second act. I know another person who dreams of opening a comic book shop.

Everybody has their own specific long-term goal, and there are as many different long-term goals as there are grains of sand on the beach.

The tricky thing, though, is that the plan for achieving each one has major differences from the plans for other goals.

For example, some goals absolutely require you to have a big increase in the gap between your spending and your income. If you’re trying to get a business started in several years that requires a pretty hefty initial capital investment, you’re going to need to be kicking a lot of money into savings very quickly.

On the other hand, other goals aren’t tied to enormous career and life changes and just require steady progress. If you’re trying to achieve debt freedom but are otherwise happy with your life, you don’t need a big jump in the size of your spending gap, you just need strong routines to keep that gap at a healthy size.

In other words, some people have personal finance goals that are best achieved by focusing heavily on increasing income, while other people have personal finance goals that are best achieved by focusing heavily in decreasing unnecessary spending.

That’s not to say that either group should ignore the other approach, of course. There’s no reason for anyone to not perform well at work or to look for obvious ways to trim their spending. The difference is in where you focus your extra time and energy.

One person – let’s call her Alison – might be incredibly excited about opening a cafe in her town, but she knows she’s going to need a big influx of cash to do it as fast as possible. Alison might be well served by launching a side business or getting a second job for more income.

Another person – let’s call him David – might really enjoy the family-oriented life he has but just wants to get rid of the lingering debt quickly. david would be very well served by seeking out family activities that don’t cost much money and looking around his home for more cost-efficient ways of doing the things that are already a part of his life.

Their lives are in different places and they demand different approaches. It doesn’t make sense for David to take a second job or start a side business – it doesn’t match what he values or what his life goals are. Similarly, Alison’s energy and passion are wholly devoted to starting that cafe, so it makes sense for her to channel her energy down whatever paths will get the doors open the fastest.

Personal finance books and articles often assume that people have a particular set of goals. Some writers are writing for people like Alison, while others are writing for the Davids of the world.

Just because you’re more like “Alison” and are reading an article that describes a path for a “David” doesn’t mean that the article is wrong and that you can’t get any value from it. The same is true for a “David” reading an article written for an “Alison.”

Diving heavily into frugality and cutting spending is the right path for some people. Maximizing income and focusing on careers and business is the right path for others. There are hybrid approaches, too, of course – just like everyone has different goals, there are different mixes of approaches that work best.

The key is to look through all of the tools out there and choose the ones that work well for whatever it is you’re trying to do.

That doesn’t mean the other tools are bad. It just means that they’re not the right ones for what you’re trying to achieve.

Frankly, whenever I see a personal finance writer ranting about how useless a focus on frugality is or how stressful and unnecessary a career obsession is (and I’ve seen both), I think of a “Popular Mechanics” writer penning an article describing how pointless screwdrivers are because all of the problems he sees are solved by hammers.

Both hammers and screwdrivers are great tools, but they work best for different jobs. That doesn’t mean it’s not useful to know how to use both.

Similarly, both frugality and income improvement are great tools, but they work best in different lives. That doesn’t mean it’s not useful to know how to use both.

The post Personal Finance Tactics Change Depending on Your Goal appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

One of my big plans for 2012, though, was to really study how and why some goals click with me and others do not.

For example, why was I able to succeed so well with my personal finance goals and blogging goals in the past, but struggle so much with my health-related goals? Could I extend what worked so well with some goals into other areas of my life that I wanted to improve, such as building stronger relationships?

As I watched what goals worked in 2012 and what things didn’t work, I learned a few things.

Large-scale goals were doomed from the start
Almost every time, I would succeed if I focused on something attainable within the next few days. If my primary goal was on an annual scale, I failed miserably.

Let’s look at that as a specific example. Often, I’d think of my health goals in an annual context. My goal would be to lose X pounds this year. As a goal, that would completely fail.

Thanks to John Brennan for the wonderful image

Small-scale goals worked much better
My success throughout most of 2012 for health-related goals was to focus entirely on weekly goals. Rather than trying to lose X pounds in a year, my focus was on losing one pound in a week. That simply meant running a net deficit of between 3,500 and 4,000 calories during a week.

My steps to achieving that goal were straightforward. I’d simply look at increased activity or good dietary choices as chipping away at that 4,000 number. All I would care about is reaching that 4,000 calorie deficit for the week, and I understood the little steps that would directly take me there. My “long loop” while jogging would burn 800 calories. I’d burn about 2,800 calories during a normal day with no exercise. My favorite kind of breakfast burrito cost me about 425 calories or so.

Tying everything to that weekly 4,000 number made the mountain much smaller to climb.

The same phenomenon was actually true of my finances. As I looked back at all of the things I did to dig out of my financial hole, the real successes were almost all short-term goals like this. I’d successfully execute a “money-free weekend” and the result of that was money saved. I’d budget myself a maximum of $20 for lunches for a given week. I’d give myself a monthly allowance for my hobbies, but then I’d mentally break that down even more into almost week-sized chunks.

Small-scale goals fit really well with big goals, but it required planning
I began to realize, as the year went on, how vital a weekly review of my goals was becoming.

I started to heavily borrow from David Allen’s idea of looking at my life from different scales. There were tasks to be done quickly, projects to be completed over several months, areas of focus that guided my life over a couple of years, visions that guided my life over five to ten years, and life goals that covered the span of my entire life.

Whenever I spent time thinking about one level, I would always find that it greatly impacted the level under that. Whenever I thought about what I wanted people to say about me at my funeral, I would see how it would directly link to things I wanted to achieve over the next several years. When I thought about those big achievements, they would also break down into smaller steps.

This trickled all the way down to things that would cover about six months to a year – in other words, things that perfectly matched the year-long period of a New Year’s resolution.

Even those annual or semi-annual projects would continue to break down and eventually end up becoming pieces on my to-do list for a given week – the short-term goals that I found worked really well for my personal success.

So, each week, I’ve started spending an hour or two thinking about things in this way. I’ll evaluate all of these levels in my life and see if anything needs adjusting, but the end goal is to generate a to-do list of things to do during the week. By simply completing that to-do list, I’m moving forward on all of the stuff I’ve decided to be genuinely important in my life.

With this kind of routine and this kind of connection between my ordinary to-do list and all of the different broad areas of my life, the idea of a New Year’s resolution seems unnecessary. I like to think of it as turning every weekend into a New Year’s celebration, where I can look back on the successes of the past week and look ahead to the next week, making sure these things are in line with what I want from my life in a broader sense.

It’s hard to see what the long-term effect of this is going to be because so many of the steps are just early steps on very long roads in my life. I don’t know where it all leads.

What I do know is that this change has launched me on several new journeys in my life, both connected to and separated from my writing and other online content production. I feel like my life, in many different areas, is moving along more smoothly and with more purpose than it ever has.

Rather than a New Year’s resolution, I prefer to think of my path for 2013 and beyond as a new week’s revolution.

The post My Resolution Revolution appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

I want to feel good more than I want to check accomplishments off my list.
I want to feel good more than I want to please other people.
I want to feel good more than I need to look good.

All the goal-chasing I used to do, partly out of wanting to feel like a cool entrepreneur, was pecking away at my peace of mind and contributing to my already deeply entrenched complex of never being enough. Big enough, loving enough, wealthy enough, strategic enough, evolved enough, popular enough.

Enough.

She goes on to make another interesting point:

Intentions & goals are tools for liberation. But when we use goal-chasing like a hammer, it can beat up on our self-esteem, relationships, and creativity.

The foundation of a good relationship with intentions & goals is keeping in mind that the primary aim of setting and working toward them is to feel the way you want to feel.

In some ways, I completely agree with Danielle. A goal that makes you miserable as you approach your destination is not really a goal worth having.

In fact, I’d argue that the journey toward the goal is really the important part, because a goal should cause you to change your behaviors in a way that genuinely leads you to a better, more fulfilling place in your life.

The thing is, it’s not the idea of goal-setting that’s the problem here. It’s that people sometimes set completely unrealistic goals, or goals that are based on what other people want, not you.

It is almost overwhelmingly difficult to achieve a goal when the motivation for that goal is external. If you’re doing something solely to please someone else or even just to match what someone else has, you’re going to have an incredibly difficult time achieving that goal. Every step is going to seem like misery and, if you don’t quit along the way, you’re going to not even enjoy achieving the goal because it didn’t really mean anything to you.

Successful goals are internal goals. An ideal goal is one that you would still want to achieve in the absence of other people in your life, because such a goal is driven entirely by internal motivations. You want success for yourself, not because of what others have and not because you hope to change what others think of you.

When you adopt an internally-driven goal, every single positive step feels like a great success and the sacrifice feels worth it.

I’ll give you a pair of examples from my own life to illustrate what I mean.

In 2004 and 2005, I made several feeble attempts to improve our financial state. I did this mostly because I knew that, on some level, people in my professional situation should get their finances in better shape. I made efforts in that direction, but I was simply trying to emulate others that I perceived as successful. There was no internal reason to do it.

In 2006, after the birth of our child, I saw how our financial mismanagement was having a negative impact on the future direction of this little boy’s life and it hit me hard on a personal level. I take my role as a father very, very seriously, and it was clear to me that my financial mismanagement was having a serious negative impact on my performance as a parent. That motivation was enough to force me to get the ball rolling on revamping my personal finances, and today my family owns a “starter” home, enjoys complete debt freedom, and is looking at a future where we pay cash for our dream home.

The goal wasn’t to be financially successful. That wasn’t what drove me. The goal was to live up to what I expected of myself in terms of taking care of the people that rely on me. If I’m not a good father or a good husband, I am ashamed of myself. That’s what drove me to personal finance success. I realized how much I was failing myself by not being smarter about my money.

Throughout my teens and twenties, I made a lot of attempts to “be a writer.” I had longtime dreams of living some sort of Ernest Hemingway lifestyle. It was a comfortable dream, but it was one that I didn’t pursue with any seriousness.

Eventually, I came to realize that to “be a writer” simply means to actually sit down and write about the things you care about, the things that are inside of you that yearn to get out. If it’s good, you’ll figure out how to make it your living, and it will start to become good if you simply sit down and let it out as often as possible.

So that’s what I did. I sat down and just started writing about what was in my mind and my heart. I didn’t worry about “being a writer.” I just wrote about the things I felt I needed to release. The Simple Dollar has been just one of those things. I’ve written stories and novels and many other things. Some have been good. Some have been bad.

The goal wasn’t to be a writer. The goal turned out to be to simply write and pour out the things inside of me on the printed page. Being a writer is just a fanciful role to dream about. Writing is a release of the things inside of me.

I find failure when the goals involve matching what others have done or simply chasing the expectations of others. I find success when I work toward things solely for myself.

The real key to goal success for me is figuring out what it is that drives me internally and tapping into that. If I do that well, achiving my goals becomes something incredibly rewarding, not something that’s a punishing slog.

What drives you? What do you feel compelled to do? What do you feel personally responsible for? What things bring you strong pleasure and joy? Figure those out and you’re going to be halfway toward figuring out life-affirming goals that take you to a better place.

The post If Goals Make You Miserable, Eliminate the Misery appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

We’d agree to spend a weekend without spending any money.

We’d agree to spend a day or two going through our DVD collection and eliminating 60% of it.

We’d agree to spend the next month avoiding bookstores.

These were strong microgoals. These led into some great short-term goals.

We agreed to focus on our highest interest rate credit card and get it paid off. Beyond that, we made a debt repayment plan to help guide us beyond that.

We decided to hold off our planned vehicle replacements until 2009 or 2010 so that we could eke as much value as possible from our current vehicles.

Our big challenge at first came after the short term goals. What comes next once we start fulfilling those short term goals?

What am I building towards?

Personal finance books and blogs do a tremendous job of giving people ideas and suggestions for microgoals and short-term goals. The problem is that microgoals and short-term goals are much like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle where you have only the vaguest idea of what the final picture looks like. The little pieces fit together, but what do they look like when you assemble them?

Another problem is that long-term goals can easily shift as you make progress on them. If you’ve set a goal of achieving a senior vice presidency at work in ten years and then your company implodes, what happens to that goal? It’s gone.

Given these problems, how does one set useful and clear long-term financial and professional goals? Here are four tactics I’ve used that have really worked well for me over the past five years.

Flash forward ten years
Where you do you want your life to be in ten years? Ask yourself this question as a realistic one, not as a fantasy that involves things that are far outside your control.

What you’re really looking for are the things you dream about that could happen if you gave up some of the poorer habits and routines in your life, established better ones, and started working for something bigger and better in your life.

What does that life look like? Are you in better physical shape? Do you have a better job? What is your personal life like?

You’re going to want to flesh out the details here. The more you consider things here, the closer the goals will be to the things that matter most to you.

Set milestones
Milestones are what I like to think of as “medium-term goals.” They’re simply guideposts along the way toward a large goal that help you move along a consistent, steady track to where you want to be.

Let’s say your long-term goal for your finances is to have a net worth of $500,000 in ten years. What kind of milestones can you have along the way?

One might simply be “debt freedom.” That’s a great medium-term goal. You might also want to have a milestone of having a net worth of $250,000 – halfway there.

Reaching these milestones is well worth celebrating. It means you’re making very strong progress toward your long-term goal, and that helps a great deal in terms of keeping you on that long, long path.

Choose generic microgoals and short-term goals
Of course, those milestones themselves require smaller steps to get there. The smaller goals of debt freedom revolve around paying off each debt. The smaller goal of getting in better shape involves achieving workout goals and perhaps weight goals, too.

As I mentioned early in this post, though, sometimes our long-term goals dissipate right in front of us. Life changes. What if your long term goal must change because of something in your life?

The best protection you have against that is to choose your short-term goals so that they would function as progress toward a wide variety of long-term goals.

A great example of this is in your career. There are a lot of ways to get ahead in an office environment, but there are certainly some paths that will help you more if, say, your company were to suddenly go under. Positive relationships will help. Self-improvement will help. Well-executed projects will help. What won’t help? Office political games. A “moat” around your job that made you hard to get rid of.

Focus on microgoals and short-term goals that make you better. No matter what happens in your life, self-improvement helps. Reduce your debt. Add to your education. Build strong relationships. These are the building blocks of many, many things you’ll want to do.

Re-evaluate regularly
People change over time. The goals they were once enthusiastic about begin to wane, and new directions begin to emerge.

Stay on top of this. People sometimes keep pushing toward the goals that they held two or three years ago that no longer truly match what they care about now. This leads to frustration and often a reduction in the appreciation of where one’s life is going. I’ve seen many people who feel like they’re running on a “treadmill,” and that’s often the result of not stepping back and looking at their goals.

I do this every week, believe it or not, but I suggest doing it at least once a month. Pull out your list of long-term goals and what you’re doing to move toward those goals and ask yourself if you still want that goal. Is this still where you feel like you should be heading with your life?

It’s okay to say that it isn’t. In fact, it’s far better to recognize that as soon as possible so that you don’t keep channeling energy toward something you don’t really want any more.

You will always feel more motivated toward a long term goal if you’ve recently considered that goal and concluded that it is truly something you want.

The post Setting Clear Long-Term Financial Goals appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

At the start of the summer, Sarah and I made a giant pile of punch cards, each numbered one through twenty. Each person got a punch card of their own.

Near our house, there’s a park with a loop that measures almost exactly a quarter of a mile. Whenever anyone completes a lap in that park, they get a punch on their mileage club card. Twenty punches and you have a completed card.

Whenever members of the family reach certain milestones, they get particular rewards. For example, two completed cards means a special dessert treat, and four completed cards means a small (under $10) item from the store of the winner’s choice. There are a few family-oriented rewards and a few really big rewards, too.

The entire purpose of the system is to reinforce good behavior through microrewards. The rewards don’t matter too much in the big scheme of things. What matters is that everyone begins to develop a sense that the normal routine of a day involves getting some outdoor exercise.

Is it successful? Everyone in our family has completed quite a few cards. The family champion for the moment is our six year old son, who will happily spend hours over there walking in circles if we let him. The recent heat wave has slowed down the accumulation of completed cards a bit, but we’ve all hit at least a reward or two.

Why has it worked so well? How can it be used in other situations? Here are a few thoughts I’ve had on that subject.

First, a big part of the success here is the visual nature of the progress. A punch on a card is very clear, as is a completed card. There’s no ambiguity at all when it comes to the progress made. It’s extremely visual and clear.

How can you make it clear for other goals? A calendar page will do the trick, for one. A big “X” on each successful day on a calendar page is a pretty clear indication of success or failure. Another idea is a simple collection of items; for example, if you pick up a small rock on each long walk you do, then the collection of rocks represents your progress with walking.

The microrewards are relatively unimportant. All you need to ensure is that they’re relatively small and that they don’t undo a significant amount of the positive progress you’ve made.

In this case, most of the goals are unrelated to health or exercise. One of the rewards is a nice dessert, yes, but none of the rewards involve days off from exercise or anything like that. A long run of success isn’t an excuse to stop succeeding.

The social aspect of this is a strong one. Quite a lot of the fun is showing our progress to others within the family (and, to a small extent, outside the family).

There are a few ways to resolve this. One is to simply display a visual indication of the progress you’re making in your home, or perhaps create a Twitter account to share it. Another is to find a buddy who is aiming for similar goals as your own.

So, how could you apply this idea to finance? It really depends on what your goals are.

For example, let’s say your goal is to pay off $100,000 in student loans. One thing you can do is create a 100×100 grid and put it on your wall. Each square represents $10 toward paying off your loan. Whenever you make a payment, fill in a square for every $10 your debt goes down. If you can make an extra payment here or there, do so and mark it on the squares.

As the squares fill in, you’ll feel naturally pushed to keep going with it and find new ways to spare $10. If it’s displayed in your home, friends and family might ask about it, giving you a way to proudly show off your progress.

For microrewards, you could agree to treat yourself in some way whenever you fill in five rows of squares. A small reward, such as a new book or a trip to the movies, can be a great motivator for this. It could be something free, of course, but you’re likely rewarding yourself in free ways throughout this journey.

Every great journey involves a lot of little steps. Sometimes the trick is to keep focused on each little step. Do that enough, and you’ll find that you’ve reached your goal.

The post Microrewarding Yourself appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Over that entire period, Sarah and I have been pretty careful with our money. We’ve given up expensive hobbies. What travel we have done in the last several years has mostly been visits to family members and friends. We’ve drastically cut back on eating out. We’ve found ways to spend less in almost every aspect of our life.

Several months ago, we submitted our last payment on our home mortgage – our only remaining outstanding debt for a long while – and found ourselves at the top of that mountain we’ve been climbing for more than half a decade.

It felt good, of course. But it also felt like an end to a very long journey.

Since then, Sarah and I have spent a lot of time talking about goals. What’s next for us? Where do we go from here?

The challenging part is that we don’t really have firm answers to those questions yet. We don’t have an overarching goal like we have had over the past six years.

We’ve talked about buying some land in the country and building a home on it, but there are quite a few reasons for us to stay put right now, with proximity to our social circle being a big part of that.

We’ve talked about career shifts, but we’re both reasonably happy doing what we’re doing right now.

We’ve talked about early retirement, too, but that’s something we would probably achieve in lieu of these other goals.

We’ve climbed the mountain and now that we’re at the top, we’re not entirely sure where to go next.

There is one thing for certain, though. It would be incredibly easy to fall back on our financial discipline right now.

Before this, we had a big goal pushing us forward and we were in worse financial shape than we’re in right now. Today? We’ve achieved that goal and we’re in the best financial situation of our adult lives.

The biggest arguments we’ve had for financial discipline are now gone.

What’s left to replace them? Habit. Over the past six years, we’ve become used to doing things in a way that conserves a lot of money and, now that we’re used to them, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to change them.

To put it simply, the biggest lesson of our financial journey is that you don’t need to spend a whole lot of money to be happy and, if you’re happy not spending money, why spend it?

I’m sure that over the next few years, we’ll find a direction in which to point our financial plans. Whatever that direction might be, though, we can be sure of one thing: the path we’ve already followed was about more than just paying off our debts. It was about figuring out how to live our lives in a sensible fashion.

The post The Value of Climbing the Mountain appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Goals and goal-setting is a topic I cover frequently on The Simple Dollar. Why? I attribute goals and goal-setting with almost every good thing that’s happened in my life over the last several years. Debt freedom is an obvious example, as is my current career flexibility, but the most powerful result of goal-setting over the last few years (in my eyes, at least) has been my ability to spend lots of time with my family.

Ten years ago, I barely thought about goals at all. I lived very much in the moment. What changed?

How goals “clicked” in my life
My first post-college job really forced me to learn how to manage goals. Right off the bat, I was faced with an enormous project that had a major six month milestone and some significant milestones off in the distance beyond that. I had a goal and, with the help of some others, I had to plan for that goal.

Still, it didn’t really cross over into my own life. I was often able to put up a mental fence between the goal-setting I was doing at work and the realities of my day-to-day life. In fact, if anything, my life outside of work moved more into a day-to-day pattern. I began to accumulate debt. I talked vaguely about the future, but I didn’t really do anything about it. I engaged in a lot of expensive hobbies and pursuits.

Eventually, in April 2006, I hit financial bottom, and I realized things had to change. I read a lot of personal finance books, made a few strong short-term moves (like selling off many of my vintage baseball cards and most of my video game collection), and got my head above water. I started paying careful attention to my finances at that point, watching where my spending was going.

Still, I wasn’t really pointing towards anything in life. It wasn’t until that summer that goals really began to click.

I went on a trip with several coworkers in mid-2006. Almost as soon as the plane landed, I began missing my son, who was just on the verge of walking at the time. Before I left, he had really mastered the idea that I was “Dad” and he would say “Dad…. Dad…. Dad….” all the time when I was around. He was in a strong “Dad phase” at the moment, meaning that he wanted me at almost every opportunity, and I relished the fact that I could be there for him.

I listened to my voicemail and there was a message from him where he kept saying “Dad…. Dad…. Dad….” along with my wife saying hello, and I realized that, with every ounce of my being, I would rather be there than be on the business trip I was on.

I expressed this sentiment to my coworkers, who largely thought I was being silly at the time. What I felt, though, is that I was on a path towards being an absent father. I didn’t want to be a father who was away all the time, either on travel or asleep because of the hard working hours.

By the time I had left, I had set a goal for myself. Three years from then, I did not want to be in a position where I had to travel for work. I did not want to be away from my family, especially when my children were young. This was a fundamental issue for me, one that I realized would lead to a great deal of unhappiness in my life if I allowed myself to compromise on it.

The next few months were filled with a lot of focus on how to achieve that goal. I discussed it with my supervisor at work, who seemed to be willing to reduce my travel, but wouldn’t necessarily eliminate it. I began to really look at my finances seriously, as I began to understand that without good finances, I wouldn’t have the leverage I would need at work to minimize my travel as my children were growing up. I also began to look at opportunities for a side income, one of which eventually became The Simple Dollar.

It was that overarching goal that really made a lot of things possible. Right now, we have no debts. We own our own home free and clear. We own two vehicles free and clear. My wife is working at a job that she really loves; she has other career options, but our financial freedom enables her to choose what she wants to do. I’m able to work on things that I love with the flexibility that enables me to spend many hours each day with my wife and my children, which is what I value more than anything else in this world.

Goals made that happen.

Thanks to luludemon for this great image

Along the way, though, I realized that the real valuable change wasn’t the successful reaching of the goal, it was the changes brought into my life along the way to that goal.

Goals add purpose to everyday actions
Before I really started to incorporate goals into my life, I would often come home from work and do whatever seemed like the most fun thing to do at that moment. I’d play a video game or read a book or go golfing with someone or go out for a drink with someone.

At the end of the day, when I was standing in the bathroom brushing my teeth or nodding off to sleep, I would think back on the fun things I did that day, which was pleasant. It wasn’t really long-lasting, though. It was a lot like eating a meltaway candy – it’s immediately delicious in your mouth, but in a few moments, there’s nothing left behind.

When I would think about the future, it was usually in vague terms. I’d imagine things that the future might hold for me, but they always had a dreamlike quality, as though I knew on some level that I wasn’t really heading toward those things.

Establishing concrete goals for my life changed all of these things. Whenever I have free time now, I’m usually looking for some way to push toward a goal of mine, whether it’s writing a novel or learning a new skill or something else entirely. At the end of the day, if I made goal progress, I feel really really good about the day, even if it wasn’t a purely “fun” day.

Most important of all, when I think about the future, the things that are potentially coming seem a lot more concrete. I know I am taking steps every day to move toward those things, so those destinations seem much more real than before.

Many of my daily actions are filled with a long-term purpose, whereas once they were not. It’s that purpose that makes it fun to get out of bed in the morning. I feel like there’s a real reason for the things I’m doing, and it’s fueled by goals.

Sometimes, I do get too hung up on the long-term consequences of my actions and I overthink things, but I would far rather see the pendulum swing a bit too far than to not have it swing far enough.

Goals prepare you for an uncertain future
Our futures are uncertain, of course. No one knows exactly what the future holds. I often hear the idea that if you have a big goal for your future and something derails it, then the goal and the progress you made toward it was a waste, so why even bother with setting goals at all?

Most of the actions you take toward a goal will still be valuable even if your life changes. For example, Sarah and I are currently saving money toward building the house in the country we’ve always wanted. Whenever we make a choice that saves us a few dollars and we set that money aside for the house, we’re closer to that goal.

However, if that goal were to change for some reason, we would still have that money, which could then be applied to different goals.

Many goals that revolve around self-improvement, from weight loss to mastering a new skill, share this trait. The time invested still has value even if the terms of the goal change later. They prepare you not just for the future you envision, but for a wide range of futures.

To summarize, goals have added significant meaning to my life. They’ve added a great deal of purpose to my everyday actions, which makes me feel better at the end of the day and motivates me to get started in the morning. Even if I don’t achieve the things I’m envisioning, I know that the steps I’m taking will help me with whatever may come.

What are your goals? What actions can you take today toward those goals? Ask yourself those questions every day and you’ll find yourself heading in a positive direction.

The post Why I Value Goals appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Get Fit the Right Way
I’ve had decent success with this, though not overwhelming success.

My goal for 2012 was to lose 52 pounds at a steady average of one pound per week. After twelve weeks, I’m down 8.4 pounds, which is certainly positive progress. Almost all of this has been due to diet, mostly through portion control. The food I eat is mostly pretty healthy – I’m a vegetarian, Sarah is about 90% of the way there, and we make most of our meals at home. My challenge is simply managing portions so I don’t consume too many calories, even if they’re good calories.

My biggest drawback has been lack of exercise due to a couple of factors: the winter weather keeping me inside and a nagging knee injury. As the weather has warmed, I’ve been spending more and more time outside, and I’m down two pounds over the last week.

Finish a Novel and Write Another One
I’ve perhaps had the strongest success with this goal. We’re not even three months into the year and I have one novel about 70% finished (first draft), another about 30% finished (again, first draft), and I’ve also been working on a frugality book that was requested by a publisher.

I enjoy writing. It’s something I love doing. I feel fulfilled when I’m putting words down on the printed page. I knew this would be my easiest goal for the year.

Perform 200 Hours of Community Service
So far, I’ve clocked around fifteen hours, which is a bit below pace.

However, many of the service activities I plan to be involved in are tied to the seasons. As spring gets going, I have two different projects I’m planning on involving myself with, with another being considered for the summer.

My biggest reason for planning this goal was that my community is important to me and, if I have the time and ability, I’d like to contribute towards keeping it a vibrant and beautiful place.

I think this goal will see success – or very close to it.

Create a Lasting Item for my Children and my Wife
This is, without a doubt, the most challenging of my goals for the year. I am having an incredibly difficult time moving forward with this.

I have many ideas about what I want to do, but whenever I’m faced with actually moving forward with it, I feel gloomy. I know the reason for it is to provide solace for those around me at a time when I would be unable to do it, but I can’t help but find myself dwelling on that situation and I’m filled with a bit of melancholy.

Lately, I have found a bit of success by just keeping the journals nearby and writing a few sentences in them a few times a day. I hope that this method will enable me to complete something of value with regards to this project this year.

Goals need reviews. They need to be tended and watched, whether they’re personal finance goals or other goals in life. Without attention, it’s easy to find the dreams you have for yourself withering on the vine.

The post How Are My 2012 Goals Progressing? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

When I think back to some of the people in my life that have passed away that I greatly miss, one of the things that really bothers me is that I don’t have some memento of their life that lets me have at least a sense of the person that they were. All I have are memories, a few old home movies, and lots of photographs.

The one exception to this is my great grandmother, who spent a significant amount of time during the last few years of her life writing something of an autobiography. I had the opportunity to read most of it once and, in the near future, I’m hoping to be able to have a copy of it of my own and read it again. It’s just a way to touch the thoughts of a person that I loved very much that I’ll not be able to see again in this life.

This, of course, brings me to thoughts of the people I love the most: my wife and my children. What will they have to know me by if something were to happen to me?

I’m not foolish enough to think that I’m infallible. I’ve protected their financial future with a sensible life insurance policy and an estate plan.

What I’d like to do is, in some way, protect their emotional future as well. What would I want to leave for them as people if something were to happen to me?

For my children, there’s simply a lot of life advice that I want to impart on them as they grow older, become adults, and face their careers and lives. I’d like them to know about their ancestry and I’d also like for them to be able to know something of the person that I was, what I held dear, and what I felt about them.

For my wife, the mission is a bit different. She already knows most of the things that I would leave for my children. What I would want to leave for her is a different gift: the knowledge that I loved her very much and that I want her to move on and have new experiences and a new life after I leave, whatever those may be. I think a lot about the scrapbook that Ellie created for Walt in the movie Up that recollects their lives shared together and ends with an admonition that Walt creates his own adventures.

This is challenging work, but it’s also valuable work. It’s something I can give to my children when they become adults even if I’m completely fine. It’s something I can continue to update throughout our marital life and leave for Sarah.

My goal in 2012 is simple: I want to create a journal/scrapbook for each of my children and for my wife that collects together the things mentioned above. I want them to have these items if something were to happen to me in the near future, and I want to give them to my children as they reach adulthood. As for my wife’s book, I’ll leave it for her to find it when the time is right.

For the most part, these will take the form of handwritten journals. I communicate so much through the written word that this seems natural to me. Although the material covered in the journals for my children will be similar, I’m going to write them each individually and I hope that they do vary some.

As for my wife’s memento, I hope to just recollect everything that’s happened in our lives together to this point and add to it regularly, with a note on the last page reminding her that I love her and that I want her to have a beautiful life, whatever that may be.

If a time comes in their life where they yearn to reach out and touch me in some way after I’m gone, perhaps I will have left behind something that can fulfill them at that moment when they need it.

The post 2012 Resolution #4 – Create a Lasting Item for My Children and My Wife appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Every single time I engage in some form of community service, I feel extremely happy about what I’ve done. I feel like I’ve caused some sort of positive change in my community and made someone else’s life better.

The problem is that it’s incredibly easy for me to put aside some of the things I could do related to community service and instead do other things. I could head over to the food pantry… or I could make chop all of the vegetables for a great ratatouille. I could pack up the children and help remove snow for elderly people… or I could go inside, make some hot chocolate, and watch The Incredibles with my kids.

Although the “right” choice here is very fulfilling, it’s often hard to do in the face of temptation.

This year, I’m simply striving to make the “right” choice more of a routine.

What areas am I focusing on?

I hope to spend some time helping a couple local food pantries with odds and ends that need done, such as restocking shelves and preparing bags.

In the winter, I’m going to pack up a shovel and do some volunteer snow removal where it’s needed.

In the spring and summer and fall, I’m going to do some volunteer work for the local parks and recreation department.

There are also a couple local charity groups that have some computer needs that I can help fulfill, so that their normal workflow can go much more smoothly.

What I’m essentially committing to is about four hours per week – on average – of such volunteer work, with a couple weeks for travel and the like.

I’ll be keeping track of this time in a spreadsheet, just so that I know I’m keeping pace with this goal. If our winter turns snowy, it’s likely that I’ll get significantly ahead earlier in the year. This does provide some breathing room for periods in the summer when there are reduced opportunities and different time constraints.

Why do this? Volunteer work makes a better community, and a better community makes a better life for those who live in it. It also leaves me feeling better about myself every time I do it. That’s reason enough for me.

The post 2012 Resolution #3 – Perform 200 Hours of Community Service appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had made some changes to how The Simple Dollar is managed in an effort to free up time for other writing projects that I’ve wanted to take on. For me, first and foremost among these projects is the fantasy novel I’ve long talked about writing here on The Simple Dollar.

Why haven’t I written it yet? Time, mostly. The ideas behind the novel float around in my head all the time, but turning those ideas into actual written prose is a time-consuming process.

Right now, the novel exists as a fairly detailed plot outline that I keep tinkering with, several character sketches, and one chapter that I’m not even sure will be in the final novel. It might actually be a prelude. Although the novel is self-contained, it could easily develop into a series.

I also have several ideas for a second novel that I’d love to write, one with a more modern setting.

2012 is the year that I’m going to write them both.

Obviously, the first step is to simply get first drafts finished of both of the novels. That in itself will take some time, particularly for the second one.

I intend to first draft the first one, then move on to making character sketches and a plot outline for the second, then moving back to the first for later drafts. This way, I give them both some time to breathe.

I have several test readers and a freelance editor lined up. This will help me polish these things up a bit beyond what I could do myself.

After that, I’m going to publish them. I’ve decided already to go the self-publishing route regarding these novels, and I’m going to be discussing them and promoting them at TrentHamm.com and on my personal Twitter, though neither is really up and going quite yet.

The exact plans for publishing are still up in the air at this point, but I will likely publish a Kindle version first and eventually do a print version. I am considering a Kickstarter campaign for it as well.

Such issues are secondary, however, to the primary goal. I intend to write two novels this year. That’s pretty clear cut. I’ll worry about selling them when that bridge comes.

The post 2012 Resolution #2: Finish a Novel and Write Another One appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

A few months ago, when I was feeling particularly frustrated about the failings of my fitness goals, I scheduled an appointment with a personal trainer.

I really do not like the idea of a “coach” to motivate my workouts or anything like that. I’ve had such coaches in the past, and I usually find myself getting angry at the coach in the middle of a workout and quitting. I do far better on my own, as I can always push myself to go a little bit farther or do one more rep. With a coach demanding it, I get irritated because I feel like they have no idea how I’m feeling and they’re just making things up, so I quit on them. I’m motivated internally, not externally, in other words.

My challenge really is coming up with a plan that works for me. Once I have that, I feel confident I can follow it.

When I met with this personal trainer, I was pretty clear that I wanted to set up a plan for myself to follow, which he understood. He then asked me point blank what my goal with all of this was.

I thought about it and I realized that the biggest thing I wanted was to be a good parent and eventually be a good grandparent. I wanted to be able to be fit enough to engage in lots of activities with both my children and with my eventual grandchildren, and I wanted to live as long as possible.

From there, he offered up a lot of recommendations.

First, he said my primary goal should be losing some of my excess weight.

As for my diet, he said that my current diet (vegetarian with occasional fish) was pretty solid but that I should work on portion control. He mostly suggested that I never take seconds during meals and a few other similar tactics.

Where he got down to business was with the exercise. He suggested that simply doing cardio – which was my main method of exercise – wouldn’t lead to long term weight loss and my avoidance of other forms of exercise was responsible for my back injury due to weak back muscles. Larger muscles lead to a higher metabolism and would then lead to weight loss if I didn’t give into eating large portions.

He gave me several books to read and offered up a simple suggestion. He said that I should spend fifteen minutes to half an hour each day exercising, but that each day of the week should focus on a different type of exercise. I should spend only a couple days a week doing cardiovascular exercise and the rest of the days should focus on different muscle groups. If I get injured, then I just avoid using those muscle groups.

The best part is that virtually all of the exercises are ones that I can do at home, with only a few weights required.

Since I have a plan, the key step is to codify a goal.

I want to lose 52 pounds in 2012. That’s a pound a week, or a calorie deficit of 500 per day. My trainer says that’s a very reasonable goal if I stick to a schedule of fifteen minutes of fairly intense exercise a day and portion control with my diet. If I get injured, I just avoid that muscle group for a while.

Will it work? Stay tuned to find out!

The post 2012 Resolution #1: Get Fit the Right Way appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Get Fit
My biggest opponent in this regard was two unexpected injuries that were unrelated to my fitness.

For the first month of the year, everything was quite successful.

In February, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice and caused some severe internal bruising and tearing. I was in pain doing much of anything for about three weeks, during which my fitness schedule completely fell apart.

I started from scratch again at this point and by early summer I felt good about the state of things. Then, in July, I went on a trip to Seattle with my family. On the last few days of the trip, we stayed in a cabin with a really low ceiling where the only way I could get around inside the cabin was to severely stoop. On the last morning of our cabin stay, my back popped, leaving me in almost constant pain for about a month. The worst part was that while I was recovering, walking for more than a minute or so left my right leg numb.

After that, I never really got my fitness plan back on track.

What went wrong? I don’t think my fitness plan accounted for the possibility of such things going wrong. When I was unable to do certain types of exercise, I would simply give up on the idea entirely.

What can I improve on? Flexibility. When I set a goal, it needs to have a path leading to that goal that’s as flexible as possible.

Play Music
For the first few months of this year, this goal went really well. I took weekly piano lessons and practiced when I could.

My biggest challenge was that I couldn’t practice at home. We did not have a conducive keyboard setup for practicing. My wife largely felt that this was a frivolous endeavor and we constantly struggled with discussions about whether we should invest the money into a piano or a good keyboard setup.

Later in the year, this problem was made worse by a string of childhood illnesses that required me to miss a series of lessons, leaving me feeling lost and not making much progress on my playing.

Eventually, these two issues came to a head and I chose to end my piano lessons.

What went wrong? Lack of a proper environment. I didn’t have a place to practice that didn’t involve going somewhere else. On top of that, I began to realize that my children took priority over my piano playing.

What can I improve on? I shouldn’t choose a goal that’s significantly incompatible with my home environment or requires a significant purchase to make possible.

Read 100 Unread Books
This is the goal I hit out of the park. I read 100 new books this year – 103 at last count, to be exact. My list didn’t quite match the list from this post, but I read a little more than half of the books listed in that post.

What went right? I simply attacked this goal with relish. One of the big advantages was getting a Kindle as a gift, to which I was able to add electronic versions of about twenty books on the list for free that were very convenient to take with me anywhere.

Final Thoughts
Life is unpredictable. The goals that you think have a clear path to success sometimes have obstacles that you don’t see at first glance, and sometimes those obstacles prove insurmountable.

The best thing you can do with any goal is to give it some careful thought in advance. Think about your plan carefully and look for potential problems – and solutions to those problems. The more care you put in up front, the more likely you are to see success as things unfold.

I hope that principle is reflected as I discuss my 2012 goals throughout this week.

The post Reviewing My 2011 Resolutions appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

My husband’s father just gave him a huge speech about how he doesn’t dress appropriately for work and how he will never get promoted or “become a manager” dressing the way he does. My husband is a computer programmer who works with a bunch of engineers. He wears dress slacks and polos or button-up shirts everyday to work, while most of his co-workers wear jeans and t-shirts. This confused me, but my husband exaplined to me that what his father is saying that since he doesn’t wear designer clothes and because he doesn’t wear a tie everyday that he will never be promoted. We buy his clothes at JC Penney, but the cheaper brands. I can’t tell the difference between them and the nicer dept. store brands, other than the price. Do you agree with my father-in-laws assessment? What about if my husband wants to advance his career, but has no interest in managing people? I realize he would make more money if he eventually became a manager, but he enjoys his computer programming work, and probably wouldn’t enjoy managing people, and I would never want him to work a job he didn’t enjoy if he didn’t have to.

I think what’s happening here is that your father-in-law is substituting his own goals for his son’s goals and he’s trying to guide his son towards those goals.

Your husband seems to have his own set of career goals. He’d like to advance his career as a programmer, but he has no interest in being in management. Your husband also has familiarity with the culture of the career path that he’s chosen.

I think it’s absolutely vital that people have a set of career goals. They need to have a sense of where they want to go and what they need to do to get there. For those reading this, ask yourself those questions. Where do you want to be with your career in five years? In ten years? In twenty? What do you need to be doing to get there?

Yes, attire can be a part of those goals. The usual advice is to dress in the attire of the position you want to eventually attain. If you want to be in management, dress like management. If you want to be just part of the senior staff, dress like part of the senior staff. I consider that to be pretty good advice.

It sounds like your husband is dressing for the position he wants to attain eventually, which is a senior programmer. He should note what people in his desired position wear and emulate it.

Your father-in-law has his own goals and he probably envisions certain outcomes for his son, for various reasons. For those goals and outcomes, the advice your father-in-law is giving his son is probably good advice. He likely envisions his son eventually moving into management and wants to prepare him to do so.

The challenge here, as it often is, is communication. For this type of disagreement to occur, both people aren’t articulating what their goals are and the paths they see toward those goals.

Your husband can fulfill his part by simply making it clear that his goals do not involve moving into management. He needs to make it clear that he’s dressing for the role he aspires to, and that something he values deeply is a job that he enjoys doing and he’s willing to accept non-executive pay for that position.

If your husband can’t clearly articulate his career goals and his plans for achieving them, he should spend some time thinking about his plan for the future. Can he clearly state where he wants to be in five or ten years? What exactly is he going to do to make sure that happens? The more thought he’s given to this and the more detail he can give, the better.

Your father-in-law should be able to accept that. If he’s not, then your next move is to simply disregard his advice with regards to a career path. If he’s still giving advice that seems to be guiding your husband toward a management role, your husband needs to just nod his head and then follow his own path.

I actually sympathize with your husband. I have little interest or desire to be involved with personnel management, and knowing that about myself has driven many of my choices, both in the past and even today. I don’t want to manage people and it sounds like your husband doesn’t either.

However, it’s important to remember that (likely) your father-in-law cares deeply and desires a successful life without want for his son. Keep that in mind as you address this situation and handle everything with care and without anger or aggression.

The post Dressing for Success and Career Goals appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Someday, I’d like to move forward on a long-planned series of video reviews of board games and card games that my friend and I have long discussed making and posting to YouTube.

Someday, I’d like to spend some time doing volunteer work for the two charities I care about, Jump for Joel and L’Arche Tahoma Hope, using what skills I have to increase their community presence and maximize the donations they receive.

Someday, I’d like to travel internationally with my family and show my children that the world is a beautiful and varied place.

Someday.

Pretty much every one of us has a “someday” or two on our list of things we’d love to do. They’re big things that would require a lot of time and planning. They’re things that seem incredibly exciting and compelling to us, but present some tremendous obstacles along the way.

Because those obstacles seem so daunting in our day-to-day lives right now, we simply think about these things as “someday” things. They enter into our daydreams, but we don’t take any real forward action toward them.

My Experience Reaching a “Someday”
Several years ago, my “someday” thing was being able to write full time for a living which would allow me to be at home for my children without travel and with extreme schedule flexibility.

At that time, I had a full time job in a field that was largely completely separate from writing. I had a very technical desk job that required some travel and also required my attention outside of office hours on a very regular basis. I also had a wife and a young child at home.

How did I make that “someday” dream a reality? Simply put, I started sacrificing my evenings and (quite often) my weekends to making that “someday” a reality. Instead of coming home and vegetating in front of a television show or a video game or just curling up with a book, I would spend several hours setting up, writing articles for, and promoting The Simple Dollar.

Simply put, I made that “someday” dream a priority of my free and leisure time and of my free and leisure money.

The amazing part was that once I got the project moving forward and got used to the routine of working on it, the project itself became really rewarding. Because it was something I had wanted to do for so long and it was so intrinsically tied to something I deeply enjoyed as a person (writing), the day-to-day work was incredibly fun even when I had very few readers and was making very little money with it.

The finanical rewards weren’t the real rewards. The process itself and the enjoyment I got from it was the real reward.

Reaching Your “Someday”
This brings us back to your “somedays” and mine. If you want to make these things come true, you have to start looking at your day-to-day time decisions with a discerning eye.

What’s more important to you? That “someday” dream or a new episode of The Big Bang Theory? Getting started on that big project you dream of or napping on the couch? Your big project or yet another shopping trip to the same old stores?

At the start of this month, I made a commitment to start on one of my “someday” projects and carry it forward to a conclusion. This means, for me, giving up some of the things I’d been filling my spare time with lately. It’s been challenging, but it’s been deeply rewarding at the same time.

What “someday” could you get started on starting today? Choose one that’s tied deeply to something you already enjoy doing, something that just channels it into a new direction. Let that “someday” fill your spare time.

Eventually, you may just find yourself on a new path, living your dreams.

The post That “Someday” Thing appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

I started off writing him an email about it, but I realized that much of what I was going to write to him would make a powerful article for The Simple Dollar.

My goal was to simply list nine things that he could do today that would improve his situation and leave him, at the end of the day, as though the day that has passed has been a valuable one and has put his life on the right track.

The Reflection
Spend half an hour and reflect on your life. Do it with nothing to distract you except a pencil and a piece of paper in front of you. Just spend that time walking mentally through every part of your life, thinking about where it’s at, what you’d like to be different about it, and what you actually like about it. Hit on what brings you joy and also what you can do to improve. Think about your dreams. Think about your biggest challenges. Look it in the face. Go through all of it.

If you come up with something – anything – that you feel like you should follow up on later, write it down. That’s why you have a pencil and paper in front of you.

Why do this? When you finish this, you’ll feel invigorated. You’ll feel far more in control of your life. You’ll have a much better sense of where things rank in your life in terms of what’s important and what really isn’t.

The List
This can follow the first one quite effectively. Make a list of ten things you want to accomplish, big or small. The best way to do this is to simply go through your mind and write down the first ten things you can think of that you want to do but just haven’t gotten around to doing.

Once you have that list, make another one. For each item on the first list, write down one single action that you can take – fifteen minutes or less – to move that item forward in some way. Then, use that second list as your to-do list for the rest of the day. Get through as many of them as you possibly can before the end of the day.

Why do this? You’ll feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment as you go to bed that night. You’ve taken forward action on a lot of things going on in your life – and forward progress on the things bothering you feels good, like that moment you’re scratching an itch that’s been bothering you for a while.

The Raise
Stop in and have a chat with your boss. Tell him or her that you’re not asking for a raise now, but that you’d like to ask for a raise in six months. Ask your boss what you can do to earn that raise over the next six months.

Take notes. Make a checklist out of what your boss tells you, then strive to go beyond each item on that checklist. Create a situation where you’re so valuable and useful to the company that they need you around.

Why do this? This is a very straightforward thing you can do to improve your own income and secure a stronger place at work. It tells you, in no uncertain terms, what you need to do to excel in the workplace.

The Book
Go to the library or to the bookstore and pick up a well-respected nonfiction book on a topic you’ve always been curious about. Start reading it today and get a significant amount of the way through the book.

The topic can be truly anything you’ve consistently wondered about over the years. All of us with even a bit of curiosity have something that we’ve regularly thought about. Now’s the time for you to sate that curiosity.

Why do this? The act of reading itself improves your language skills. Reading a challenging book improves your thinking skills. Following up on an area that you’re curious about is a great way to improve your knowledge on a topic that matters to you.

The Walk
Go for a one hour walk in your neighborhood. As you’re walking, be observant. Don’t just withdraw into your own shell or your iPod. Notice what’s going on around you with your eyes and your ears. Look for things that are interesting to you.

Along the way, say hello to everyone you see (if that’s reasonable, meaning you’re not walking in a particularly crowded area). Genuinely compliment anyone that you have a real reason to compliment. Also, make an effort to remember anything interesting that you come across, like a flyer for an interesting community activity.

Why do this? The walk itself provides exercise. The constant observation improves your observation skills and your understanding of what’s going on around you. The positive social interaction with others is a great way to practice social skills and perhaps start building connections to the people who live near you.

The Giving
Go to a charitable organization in your neighborhood that you believe in, knock on the door, and ask how you can help. It could be a church, a food pantry, a soup kitchen – anything. The key is that you believe in what they’re doing.

Most charities are happy to find something for an interested set of idle hands to do. It might be anything, from cleaning to serving food to organizing things to setting up or fixing a computer. It depends entirely on what that organization needs, and if you’re meeting that need with whatever skills and energy and time you can offer, you’re helping that charity achieve its goal of helping others who need it.

Why do this? Few things improve your outlook on life quite like investing some of your time, energy, and talent toward helping others. It gives you a strong sense of social accomplishment and pride in how you’ve spent your time, particularly when you can directly see the connection and improvement in your community.

The Cleansing
Go through your house. Gather up everything that you rarely use. Load it in your car. Drive it down to your local Goodwill. Donate it.

Yes, of course, you could have a yard sale or something like that, but the relative earnings for a lot of the things you’d donate wouldn’t earn you a lot at a yard sale and a lot of it would go unsold. Not only that, the stuff would have to sit around your house until the next time you can have a yard sale. If you want a fresh start, you’re better off just getting it out of there.

Why do this? You’re reducing the number of items you own, which means more space in your home and less time invested in upkeep and maintenance of your stuff. You’re giving those items to a charity, and you’re also ensuring that they wind up in the home of someone who wants them.

The Thanks
Call the person that has meant the most to you over the course of your entire life and tell that person that you love them and appreciate what they’ve done for you.

That person might be a parent, but it might also be a mentor or an old friend or an older sibling, depending on how the course of your life has gone.

Why do this? You’re able to let that one important person in your life really know how much they meant to you, which is an emotional gain both for you and for that person. Sometimes, this type of call can cut through a period of poor contact between the two of you, which can be a great improvement to a valuable relationship for both of you.

The Goal
Set yourself a single overarching goal – financial or otherwise – that you want to achieve in the next five years. Come up with a detailed plan for doing it. Do everything you can do for that plan on the first day, such as setting up accounts, setting up an automatic installment plan, doing some research, and so on.

For many people, the singular goal is an obvious one. It’s one that’s been dominating our thoughts for a while but has seemed so big that we’ve been afraid to take action on it. Today’s the day to start taking action.

Why do this? A big goal like this is something that can completely change your life. Taking the first steps toward that transformation can feel incredibly empowering – and they also do start you on your way to the change you dream about.

The post Nine Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Life appeared first on The Simple Dollar.