As I lay on the couch, piecing together my idea for a post on themes versus resolutions, I went through the various themes I’d had in previous years, out loud to my boyfriend.

“’07 was well, just surviving. ’08 was the Year of Relationships. And this year was the Year of Finances.”

“So what’s 2010?” he asked.

I took a deep breath.

The Year of Organization.

My theme is usually based on the big hairy elephant in the room. Last year, I was over-drafting my bank account at least once a month. I never had enough money to last till the next paycheck. I had zero savings and three maxed out credit cards. I was perpetually without and didn’t have anything to show for it.

Enter 2009: The Year of Finances. It took me a while to figure out what would work for me. I had a lot of bad money habits and I really didn’t want to change many of them. After a few months of trying different things out, I finally got on board with Dave Ramsey. As I related in my previous post, I was able to not only stop over-drafting my bank account, but I paid of the credit cards, got current on my student loans, paid all my medical bills, and socked away almost three months of living expenses. In total, I paid down nearly $5,000 in debt.

So, when I say 2010 will be the Year of Organization, I know it will be a challenge.

The Year of Finances sucked. It wasn’t all la-la-la, I have so much money to throw into things. I had to budget, I had to forgo vacations, I didn’t get to buy any tech gadgets… and I had to start drinking coffee at home. I’m kidding, but it really was a painful change to make. I had a lot of great support from other Ramsey-ites (thanks to Michelle, Ashley and Kendra!), which helped.

Why this theme

As I said in the previous post, you should pick a theme that solves the most of your problems. And most of my problems these days seem to come from a complete and utter lack of organization. And there is mounting evidence that if I don’t make 2010 the Year of Organization, it might kill me.

I have two jobs.
I love my “day” job working in marketing research and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I work for a company that genuinely cares about me; I have a great boss and believe that management wants me here. I also have my own company that I work with after-hours and on weekends, which scratches my entrepreneurial itch but also fills my every waking moment outside of work. Having two careers is tough, and there’s a lot of schedule juggling to make it all happen without losing any integrity or quality in one or the other.

I have time-consuming allergies.
I have six – count them – SIX allergies. Four are environmental (dust mites, cat hair, mold and trees), but the other two are the tough ones: food allergies. I’m allergic to both wheat and soy, which means I pretty much can’t eat anything manufactured, processed or pre-packaged. I take medication for my environmental allergies, which works sometimes. I have to wash our comforter, comforter cover, sheets, special allergy pillow covers and mattress cover in hot bleach water every other week, which usually eats up an entire Saturday. I have to pre-cook my meals for the week, or I end up eating stuff I shouldn’t or not eating anything at all. And if I don’t make everything click exactly right, my allergic reactions usually take the form of intense fatigue.

I can’t say no.
They always tell people to make realistic goals. Saying “no” just isn’t a realistic goal for me. Start a local chapter of Social Media Club? Yes. Start a company? Yes. Put on a conference? Yes. Write some ebooks? Yes. Sit on this special committee? Yes. Take on a new client? Be on a radio show? Plan an unconference? Write for this new blog network? Yes, yes, yes and yes please! I like doing a lot of things. But that takes organization.

I’ve always been “messy” and I’m tired of it.
I don’t want to shatter anyone’s perception of me, but um… I’m really messy. Right now, I have four coffee cups on my desk, a spoon, two open bottles of water, and various tiny pieces of paper with notes on them. I never really finish the process of getting the laundry into the appropriate drawers, if by some miracle I fold them, and I don’t use my home office because I can’t move in it. When I was a kid, my mom coined the term “fire path” to describe the clear lane from my bed to the door in an otherwise unruly bedroom. I’ve always blamed this messiness and disorganization on my creativity… a big brain like mine simply can’t be bothered with details. But this isn’t really who I want to be. And I’ll be the first to admit that a neatly-appointed space just feels nicer.

I know there’s a long road ahead as I fumble through what doesn’t work before I find what does, but a New Year’s Theme shouldn’t be easy. And if I have anything like the kind of success I had in the Year of Finances, then the Year of Organization is going to be a very good one.

If you haven’t shared already, what’s your theme for 2010? Why?

Photo courtesy of austinevan via Flickr.

Every year after Christmas, people sit down and review the past year. They look ahead and come up with an improbable list of to-do items for the coming year. You’re going to run four times a week, not eat fast food, do a monthly budget you live and die by, put 20 percent of your paycheck into savings, spend more time with family, learn to knit, take a Spanish class, get to work on time, get 8 hours of sleep… essentially, you’re going to become perfect.

And then you don’t do one of them. And they all go down the drain because if you’re not going to be perfect, well then why do a bunch of stuff that’s no fun?

At least, that’s been my experience. Every year, I got swept up in the spirit of self-improvement and made ridiculously long lists of things I was going to do differently, learn or stop doing. I made calendars and schedules and stuck to them for about… oh, maybe three weeks.

Which makes me average it turns out. According to time management firm FranklinCovey, only a third of people will even make it to the end of January.

The end of JANUARY.

The cure is supposedly to make a specific resolution. Perhaps pick just one of the resolutions I listed in the first paragraph and go with that.

But that hasn’t worked for me. I have that Gen Y disease of ambition. Just one of those resolutions feels so… flimsy.

Why you need a theme

Here’s my problem with these specific resolutions: they may not be the right answer. Maybe you find that putting 20 percent of your paycheck into savings isn’t going to work because you can’t stop over-drafting your bank account. Or, you find out your knees can’t handle running. Or, you find it impossible to get 8 hours of sleep. And then you just give up.

What you need is a theme, something that sets the tone for your year, and gives you a banner to work under. In the end, what is your overall goal? Is it to be fit and healthy, to have good finances, to feel rested? Make it the Year of Finances, or the Year of Fitness, or the Year of Relaxation.

For the past three years, I’ve picked a theme for my year. And it’s worked.

2007 was the Year of Survival. I got sober in April (a late start to the year, I know), and basically just learned how to live all over again. This theme was more or less picked for me. I can’t take credit for that one.

2008 was the Year of Relationships, as you can clearly see in my blog (here, here, here and here). Having learned to survive, I went about learning how to survive with others. My relationships with men were all over the board as I tried to figure out what I wanted and who I was. My relationships with family and friends got some work also. I think this was a subconscious theme.

2009 was the Year of Finances. Honestly, this was the first year I set a resolute theme at the beginning of the year with an earnest desire to tackle it. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I fumbled around with Quicken Online and heard about Mint.com and read I Will Teach You To Be Rich, but what ended up working for me was Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. I didn’t get on board with it until May. But I didn’t give up on my finances because that theme hung over my head all year. I knew that there was an answer and having a theme, and not a specific resolution, helped me gather the research, feedback and experimentation I needed to find my answer.

How to pick a theme

The more my life becomes calm and healthy, the more the areas that need work seem to stick out. I’m not blessed with the kind of clarity in my life where I can just go, “Oh, I really need to work on my finances! I can see how this contributes to my other problems.” Yeah, I don’t have that.

So I sort of feel my way through my life, asking myself what feels bad, where do I feel negative emotion in my day, then trying to trace it back to the source. I felt awful when my bank account over-drafted for the billionth time. And oh, hey! That seems to come up a lot. Maybe I should work on that.

Ask yourself these questions:
- What is causing the most problems in my life?
- What is giving me the most chaos?
- What are the most inconvenient things happening?
- What seems to be happening over and over again even though I try not to?
- Where do I see a spike in negative emotion in my daily life?
- What would give me the most peace if I could find a solution for it?

If you’re having trouble picking between two (or three or four…), pick the one that’s solves the most problems. Last year I was trying to choose between the Year of Finances and the Year of Health & Fitness. When I made a list of the problems each would solve, the Finances Year solved a lot more problems, including some of my health problems (medical care is expensive, yo!).

What happens next…

The amazing thing about having a theme for your year is that it’s about changing your mindset toward a certain area of your life. You’ve decided to change some area of your life that you previously carried an attitude of indifference toward. Lots of things will change.

Take my 2009 Year of Finances for example: not only did I stop over-drafting my bank account (which could’ve been my short-sighted New Year’s Resolution), but I’ve paid off all my credit cards, survived meeting my hefty insurance deductible for health care (thanks to surgery), and stored away almost three months of living expenses in my savings account. And since I decided I needed an alternate stream of income, I started my first business and have a steady stream of clients. Year of Finances indeed!

Of course your theme can fail. The number one reason resolutions fail is because people aren’t committed to them in the first place. If you aren’t committed to your theme, then you won’t move on it.

Move forward with a positive attitude. Remember this is the year you will change your [finances/health/career/love life/insert theme here]!

The great thing is that area of your life will be forever changed, not just temporarily shifted. As I move into my 2010 theme, I don’t stop working on my finances. My attitude toward finances has been changed forever.

Wanna know my theme for 2010? Read the follow-up post here. What’s your theme for 2010?

Photo courtesy of Tojosan via Flickr.

I believe that everyone ought to have a personal board of directors in their life… especially in your 20s. I’m only six years into this (thank god it’s halfway over!), but figuring out finances, romances, career aspirations, and general living sense eludes me from time to time. I seem to bump along fine for a few months, then WHAM! I get something that completely throws me off-kilter. I was just entering shaky ground when I met Jenny Ferry, a life coach.

Now, Jenny and I have never actually met, but I can imagine exactly how she would be from our phone and email interaction. Her warmth actually radiates in every hello via phone and every earnest closing of an email. Not many people can pull off that kind of emotion with sincerity, in this skeptic’s book.

Jenny specializes in helping twenty-something women find direction in whatever it is their having trouble with. We started by identifying what that might be for me. Just picking one or two things to work on was a challenge in and of its self. I believe my words were, “Ugh. Where do I start??” I was working two jobs, running my small business and writing this blog. I was in a new relationship and I was training for a half-marathon. I was just about to freak out.

I took a quick diagnostic survey. The career portion practically leapt off the page at us. That was definitely where we needed to start. Then there was this “fun” category. Fun? What’s that? Work is fun, I said. Heh. We were still going to work on it. “We’ll just sprinkle it in,” Jenny said. I could go along with that.

We tackled my four jobs first. I told her I felt like I had the ability to do all of these really great things, but I didn’t know how to pick just one, or even two to pursue. She helped me break it down and get it on paper. Once we did some simple evaluation and took a look at it, I was blown away. Right there, in black and white, I could see what was most important to me out of my four “jobs.” Blogging was by far and away my number one passion. It was followed closely by my marketing job, then came the café (which lost major points in the income category), and trailing abysmally behind was the one I was putting the most effort into – my IT company. According to that sheet of paper, it was my least favorite thing to do. And I had to agree.

“What can we take off your plate?” Jenny asked. Jenny always asks the hard questions. I drew my breath in sharply and deeply. Hearing me, she said, “Why don’t you spend some time on this one. Let me know what you come up with.” I talked over it with friends, and I thought about it. I looked at that sheet of paper and my decision was clear. I’ve since put the company on indefinite hold. I still have one client who doesn’t require much attention at the moment, but no efforts are being made to attract new ones. I’ve been able to concentrate on my blog more and to scale back my hours at the café so that it’s less work and more just-for-fun.

Jenny challenges me to step outside my boundaries in order to pursue what I want. At her suggestion, I have: asked for my hours to be changed at work, found a mentor at the corporate level, taken a relaxing bath, and have begun researching business schools for my MBA. I didn’t even know I wanted to get an MBA before I started working with Jenny. I was afraid to say that I want the thing that everyone says I don’t need.

One major exercise we did was crafting my life purpose statement. This single sentence would be a tuning fork for my entire life that I could use at any point to see if I was “in tune” with what I felt my life’s purpose was. I was definitely skeptical. After all, I’ve spent at least 14 years trying to find my purpose in life. I was a philosophy major, for crying out loud. In one hour, I’m going to find my life purpose. Yeah, right.

Yeah, right! My life purpose statement kicks some major ass. It is Holly with a capital H. I can go through my week knocking that tuning fork and know pretty much whether or not I’m lined up with my life’s purpose. It soothes me, it invigorates me, but most importantly, it reminds me of who I am and who I want to be. A life purpose statement is really personal, so I’m not going to share it here. You’ll just have to become friends with me and ask.

What Jenny does as a life coach is help define my goal and bring it into focus. We find my obstacles, which are usually my own limits, and then she promptly challenges me to knock them down. She does this with warmth, passion, enthusiasm and empathy. If we were in the same town, I have no doubt every meeting would end with a squeeze. But the woman will make you work – trust me. And in that work, you find yourself. You find these amazing little gems (courage, confidence, self-awareness) that were already inside of you, but you just didn’t know how to access.

I feel more in tune with myself and with my goals, and I feel more confident in the path I’m taking to achieve them. So often my 20s have felt like blindly groping for I-don’t-know-what in a black room. Jenny helps me shed a little light on what I’m looking for and how to grab it.

In an earlier post, I announced that I would begin a new accountability regime: posting my goals and my progress toward them to this blog once a month. Several of you, both readers and fellow bloggers, expressed interest in doing the same. I’m inviting everyone to participate who would like to post something similar on their blogs. Email me your blog entries and I’ll post them links to them here as well.

Without any further ado, I give you my first Hold Me Accountable post.

Physical
This is probably the area where I’ve lost the most steam as of late. It is also the one that I would like to get back on track with the most. When I treat my body well, it treats me well. Everything else runs so much more smoothly in my life when I feel good physically. There are three components to my physical goals: exercise, diet and overall health.

Exercise
I took up running in late December last year. I put running down around the beginning of May. I had been training for a relay marathon and once it was over, so was the training. I need a goal in order to stay motivated in my running, even though I love it. I know I’m going to feel good after a run (phenomenal, actually), but the motivation I need is when I really don’t feel like waking up early and lacing up my shoes. So, I’m going to sign up for a half-marathon. I’m confident I can do it if I start training now. I’ll do short runs on Mondays, hard runs on Wednesdays, cross-train on Saturdays and long runs on Sundays.
Goals: Sign up for half-marathon in October; beginning training schedule.

Diet
I don’t mean diet in the sense that I’m trying to lose weight. I’m not. I simply want to give my body good fuel, not crap. The main threat to my diet is the vending machines at work. If I forget (or am too lazy) to make my lunch, I’m known to eat a lunch of chips and soda. Blech. I’ve already begun to make dinner at night and bring leftovers to work. Note: This helps financial goals as well – double-plus bonus! I’m also really bad about keeping my refrigerator at home stocked. When it’s full, not only do I eat better and save money on eating out, but it gives me an odd sense of fulfillment. Hmm.
Goals: Cut out soda, vending machine snacks; bring healthy lunches and snacks to work; keep home fridge stocked.

Health
You’ve heard me complain about my sinus infections ad nauseum, I know. I bought a neti pot (for nasal irrigation) because I heard from many, many sources that it works wonders. I’ve been too chicken to try it, even though I feel confident it will help. I’ve been battling some serious fatigue, probably due to sinus infections and not exercising, which is added incentive for the workout routine. Finally, it’s been about 3 years (!) since I’ve been to the dentist. Yikes.
Goals: Use neti pot three times a week for one month; see dentist.

Relationships
My biggest issue with my relationships right now is that I’m spending an awful lot of time with a certain someone instead of spending some time with myself, my friends and my family. This was fine and well in the budding stages of the relationship, but now that things have settled down a bit I desperately need to hook back up with my friends and fam.
Goals: Hang out with my three best friends for some serious QT at least once this month; visit my aunt and my grandmother.

Career
For now, thing seem to be going really well with my 8-5 job. I’m relatively focused and my recent annual performance evaluation was stellar (including a raise!). Guess where nothing is happening? That’s right – my business. uSavvy, my IT consultancy, has one client, no actual tax ID number, nothing, plus a website that’s just sitting there, all designed and hosted and not actually up. Include my blog in here, and I haven’t been posting as regularly as I would like, which is about 3-4 times per week.
Goals: Obtain tax ID number and sole proprietor status; open bank account; finish site buildout and get online; buy business cards; write business plan; blog 3-4 times per week.

Financial
I have two areas I’m currently working on financially. I’ve got terrible credit (hey, I drank heavily during those pivotal post-college years), and practically no savings… OK, no savings if you aren’t counting that $50 in my ING Orange savings account. I started the ball rolling on this one yesterday though. My pay increase will show up in my next paycheck and instead of rejoicing at the extra money, I already set up an autodraft for the increase amount to pay down my credit card. I also have an autodraft set up for a student loan I am rehabilitating, as well as one for $50 per paycheck to my savings account. Once the credit card is paid down, I will up my savings autodraft to include the amount from the pay increase. The problem with my savings account is that I almost always tap into it. I’m a little more solid financially right now, so my goal is not to do that.
Goals: Pay off credit card in 2.5 months; continue savings without touching it.

Spirituality
I don’t talk about my spirituality very much on this blog, even though it’s a big part of my life. The truth is that I’ve been a little disappointed in my spirituality lately… or my lack thereof. I’m not a churchgoer, that’s just not for me. However, I do pray and meditate. I include my sobriety as part of this picture because the way I stay sober is to work a spiritual program. I go to three or four 12-step meetings every week, but I’d like to start branching out a little more into more groups besides my home group, particularly to this one young people’s group. I’d also like to try to meditate in the mornings, even if it’s just for a short time period.
Goals: Attend one non-home group 12-step meeting per week; meditate twice a week.

General
Finally, this part relates to my overall life goals, mood and emotions. I’d say lately I’ve been in a funk. Definitely in a funk. It’s not enough for me to focus on my short-term goals, so I need to keep my long-term goals on the burners, too. I really would like to move to a larger city. I would like to either advance to the next level of my career in research or I would like to take my business full-time. I would like to be a less selfish person on a day-to-day basis. The other day I realized at the end of the day that I was the only person I had thought about all day. That sucks. And I’m guessing that it probably also makes me a pretty obnoxious person to deal with.
Goal
s: Mostly just to keep my larger life goals top-of-mind; try to think of other people and how I affect them throughout my day.

I will keep you all up-to-date with my progress on a monthly basis, at the very least. I hope that some of you will jump in and participate. It would be really great to have a community of people who are all holding each other accountable, encouraging one another and learning what works and what doesn’t in real time, wouldn’t it?

Related articles:
Got goals? Hold yourself accountable
How baby steps became a huge deal
Stand up and be accounted
How I change my habits

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I’m having a little accountability issue. As in, I have none. I have a lot of goals, not just in my career, but also in my personal life, my finances and my health. As I’ve struggled to regain my footing after falling in love, I’ve come to find my real issue is now that I simply lack the motivation to accomplish on a day-to-day basis, and that daily action is critical to the fulfillment of larger goals.

I know one thing to be true when it comes to setting goals and achieving them: the most surefire method is to chip away at it one step at a time. Daily action is necessary. If you want to train to run a marathon, you’ve got to actually put your shoes on and go for a run. If you want to pay off your credit cards, you cannot charge anything to them today. I prefer to live one day at a time this way. When I start to use the word “tomorrow,” I get myself into a world of trouble. I won’t accomplish much with “I’ll run tomorrow” or “I’ll stop using my credit card tomorrow.” This method of goal procrastination will leave you stranded. You just need to start.

Enter accountability. Now that you’ve decided to go through with the daily action method you could use a little reinforcement. I used to get this through Guy I Was Seeing. Though we’re still friends, I don’t get to talk to him as much as I used to. Read more about what an accountability partner can do for you here.

What happens if you can’t find an accountability partner or group? Or if you’re the only one who ever does anything in said partnership/group? I’m not sure, but I’m taking a stab with my blog. Yep, you guys are now my accountability partners. I find it hard to make excuses to you all… mostly because my lame excuses look really bad in print. That, and I’ve sworn to be as honest and as transparent as possible.

I know I won’t meet all of my goals 100 percent of the time, but the nice thing about accountability partners is not the negative pressure – it’s the positive pressure. It’s reassuring to think you guys know what my goals are, what I’m doing to get there, and that you get to see the results when I do what I say and when I don’t. It might be corny and a little arrogant, but for some reason I have the feeling that you guys have my back.

All mushiness aside, my monthly accountability posts will basically have a “where I’m at” theme. I’ll review my goals, what I’ve done, what I haven’t done and what I plan to do. The areas in which I will be accountable are broad: physical (exercise, health, diet), relationships (family, significant other, friends), career (job, entrepreneurship), financial (credit, savings), spirituality (meditation, sobriety), general (emotion, mood, life goals).

I realize that not everyone wants to read about me, me, me, but my hope is that my transparency in these things will allow people to see what really works… and what really doesn’t. I’ll be posting the first one tomorrow.

How do you stay accountable? How do you reach your goals, little and big?

I’m staring back at my reflection wearily. I’ve just finished washing my face for bed when I realize why I’m so tired of looking at myself in the mirror every night. It smacks me it comes back so suddenly. This is what you looked like before you got a grip, I remember.

There’s a lack of color here. There’s been a lack of color since… since… when did it fade? Somewhere around falling in love and completing my relay marathon only a month ago. I used that week after the race to “reward myself.” I let myself eat poorly and slack off on my training… way off. As in, didn’t do it all.

That week has yawned into a month.

I can feel the little roll at tummy when I slump in my bad posture. It isn’t just that my face has lost color and that I have probably put on two or three pounds. I haven’t been sleeping enough, not what I call a healthful amount. I haven’t been going to enough meetings and I can feel that my spiritual well-being is affected. I’ve been eating entire meals out of the vending machine at work.

This isn’t the dark cloud of grief that rolled overhead back at the beginning of April. This is laziness. Knowing how to pick myself up and not being willing to do the work to bring that about. In my 12-step program, we say that when the pain is enough, we will act.

Luckily my threshold for pain has become amazingly low. Tonight, one glance in the mirror does the trick. I’m tired of being lazy, I assert to my innermost self. This sucks. Let’s quit this shit and get on with the rest of it.

I could go on and on as to why this has happened – work has been slow and uninspiring, a new relationship needs attention, there are things to do besides train for races that are months away. Excuses. Excuses I’ve been willing to make and accept because I am lazy and unmotivated. So here I am. Out of racing shape, pallid faced with an upset stomach and three pounds heavier. I’ve even been reduced to participating in pointless blog commenting, something I usually have enough serenity to not get involved in.

This one is all on me. I’ve written before about accountability partners and the wonders they can work for helping you to stay motivated. That’s fine and well, unless you stop calling them… especially when you want to avoid being, er… accountable.

In the past I could spend an entire blog post on how I’m going to pull my shit together, exactly what I’ll do and in what order to get things back on track, reassure you the reader that I am indeed doing it. And then promptly sit on my ass for two more weeks before I finally follow through. I won’t do that here. I’m not sure when my motivation will come back to me or when exactly I’ll decide that it’s been enough.

I think I just did though.

It’s not really news to anybody that I’m not exactly passionate about my 8-5 job. The work I do is highly analytical, data-oriented and involves me starting at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. When people ask me what I do at my job, their eyes generally glaze over when I get about 15 seconds into it. That’s about how long it takes before my eyes glaze over when I open up a new set of data I’m about to work with. I am not, however, excused from excelling at my job.

I believe that if you ask my coworkers, my boss, and the associates who rely on my work on a daily basis how I am doing, they will probably tell you that I’m a data whiz kid, an Excel genius, a PowerPoint guru. OK, maybe that’s taking it too far, but for the most part, they’ll tell you I rock my job. Because I do.

Let me repeat – I don’t love my job. As a matter of fact, about twice a week I skulk off to the online department and chat with the guys over there about what’s new in the online world. I wonder, sometimes out loud, when another position will be budgeted especially for me. Then I go back to my desk and finish my work.

Sound boring? It is.

Maybe this sounds really bleak to you, really dismal and boring and you say to yourself, “I could never do that.” Well, remember that I do have a passion – my own business that I am growing after hours.

It’s also really exciting to hear the president of your company decide that you are the only person necessary at a conference call who is not a manager or vice-president. It’s nice to hear you described to a new manager as an integral part of such-and-such process. It’s gratifying to hear that you were impressive in that strategic planning meeting.

It could be tempting given the recent success my own business is having, to not give a crap about my current job. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to be known as a crappy worker. I don’t want to put mediocre work out into the world. I also respect that the people I work with are counting on me to support them the best that I can. They are passionate about their jobs and they are counting on it to provide for them.

In a word, what I am talking about it responsibility. I may not be passionate about my 8-5 job, but I am passionate about being a quality employee and coworker. To buck Gen Y stereotypes, I guess you might say I am passionate about responsibility.

If that’s not good enough for you, then remember that everyone you come in contact with at your current job is a contact. Your reputation as a solid worker is at stake.

First, let me admit that I talked about asking for a raise for about two months before I finally got the cojones to actually do it. But that’s sort of how I operate. I like to think I’m improving though.

It all started back around the end of December when I decided I wanted to buy a house. I got in touch with a friend of a friend who is a mortgage broker and we went over my financials.

Mortgage broker: ‘Holly, your DTI [debt-to-income ratio] is simply too high. You do not spend frivolously. I do not see how you could lower your debt much either. You simply do not make enough. Can you ask for a raise?’
Me: ‘Oh, yeah. Let me just go run and ask my boss for a raise and say my mortgage broker said I need it. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.’

I spent a good few weeks feeling hopeless, dejected and trying to figure out how to lower my debt, assuming that a raise was out of the question. As I struggled to find ways to lower my debt, I became frustrated and began to wonder just how little I made… Less than most dental hygenists it turned out. Less than the lower 10 percent of my profession in my state it turned out. Talk about a heightened sense of frustration.

From there I timidly started throwing out the idea to my closest friends: “I’m thinking about asking for a raise,” I’d say casually. And, seeing as I have the best friends in the whole world, all of them said, “Right on! You should! You deserve more!” Thanks, guys.

Then, I told two of my accountability partners. “I’m doing it on Monday,” I swore to my self-imposed bullshit-callers. Then, Monday evening I had to explain to them why I didn’t. A dozen lame excuses later, I realized the only one who was suffering bad pay was me.

I did a little bit of research online, but honestly unless you’ve never asked for a raise before, don’t really have a valid reason to do so, or don’t have a parent or mentor to explain it to you, then this is a waste of time. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, and all it did was give me a way to put off what I didn’t want to do. So one morning, armed with notes and government labor statistics, I meekly asked my boss if he had a minute.

I opened the conversation with a comment on not really knowing how raises worked (not quite true – I was very familiar with my company’s policies, which I highly recommend you know before going in), but that I had passed my six-month mark with no evaluation. He replied that raises usually came at the one year mark and in the form of 2-3 percent. Was this what I was looking for, he asked. Well, I replied, I was looking for something a little more substantial and pointed out the industry and market stats I had (briefly and in one easy sentence – no one wants to hear your research paper on the subject). He said he wasn’t sure what he could do, but that I was definitely on track for the small yearly bump.

Rejection. I went in the office bathroom and forced myself to suck back the tears. You’re a grown-up, for crying out loud, I told myself, and hey, at least you asked. Time to look for a new job, I thought. Bummer. I like my job, but nothing will stand in the way of me achieving my own home.

Imagine my surprise two days later when my boss asks me if I have a minute. Here’s what I’ll do for you, he says. Something close to the sum I was hoping for, plus my yearly bump when I get there. Hurrah! Take that soft economy and you financial naysayers! I visited the bathroom again, this time to do a little dance.

So what it did it really take to get my raise? The balls to ask for it. Show up and suit up, and stuff happens. Not showing up because you’re assuming you’ll lose is ridiculous. Know what you want, know what you’re worth and ask for it, politely and informed, and be prepared for one of three answers: yes, no or maybe. You don’t have to demand or threaten to quit. The worst that can happen is they say no or I don’t know. Hey, I’ve been there and it’s still worth it.

No harm in asking.

Like Linus, the Peanuts character whose blue blankie is ever-present, so I am with my tan-and-black workbag. It contains whatever two or three books I’m reading (currently Eat Pray Love, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and E-Myth), my planner, two journals (one personal and one career-related), pens, pencils, highlighters, and all the lovely little things that go in a normal purse.

I lug it around with me everywhere. I get razzed endlessly by my friends, family, or whoever else is around to be embarrassed by what is clearly too large and inappropriate for the movies, a restaurant, or shopping. “What do you need all that for?” is a frequently-asked question.

What do I need it all for? Well, just in case. In case of what? In case I have a free moment. In case I end up somewhere alone. Just in case.

So, here I am in my hometown of Pensacola for my grandfather’s funeral, lugging around my bag of work gear endlessly, not getting anything done. I have nothing to do. My work stuff is all at the office. Staying with relatives means no Internet (slinking away from relations for a daily dose of coffee and Internet seems addict-like), so I can’t work on the blog. Endless chaos and noise and relatives you’ve not seen for years do not make for an environment conducive to reading or journaling. So, my bag is useless.

Which means I CAN’T WORK. For some reason, this has me geeking out more than anything. I have no routine. All of my pet projects, all of my entrepreneurial endeavors, everything that has defined my waking (and sometimes sleeping) life is unavailable to me. A big gaping hole of non-productivity – that’s what I feel like. It’s like an itch that can’t be scratched. I guess the real problem is that I want to be back in my life.

In reality, I simply don’t want to be here – not here in Pensacola or at my grandfather’s funeral. I don’t want to be going through this.

I don’t think that it’s uncommon to use work as a security blanket. Often times, we simply don’t want to deal with the big emotional things looming larger than life – surely updating the margin widths of my website is of the utmost importance. Hmm…

I won’t go on a lengthy diatribe about how detrimental a workaholic attitude (the use of work as a way to not deal with emotional pain) can be. We know that it ruins marriages, families, relationships, and friendships, and can lead to even bigger isms (alcoholism, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression). It also doesn’t get you anywhere.

Someone once told me that painful things will happen in life and you’ll have an overwhelming urge to do something, anything about it. You will be frantic trying to find a way to fix it, to plug the hole through which emotion is flowing, like the Dutch boy with his finger in a dam. Unfortunately, we come across situations that we can’t do anything about. There is simply nothing to be done about losing two people you care very much about in less than two weeks. There is nothing to be done about 12-hour drives, crazy families and heartache. The only thing you can do is feel the pain. All you can do is simply stand.

I don’t really know how I made it through actually. I can tell you that I feel somehow stronger knowing that I came through all of it without any crutches. I know I can survive almost anything. Asking for a raise no longer seems like the earth-shattering event it was three weeks ago. The thought of not seeing that guy anymore is no longer life-altering. Everything seems somehow smaller, paltry. I know I weather any unexpected storm. I know I can stand.

Stand undeterred.

If you had told me three months ago what I would be doing tomorrow, I wouldn’t have believed you.

A few months ago, my life took an unexpected turn. I was on a second date, which happened also to be my 26th birthday, and he asked me where I saw myself in 10 years. I had no answer. Stumped and on the spot, I had to admit that I wasn’t really sure.

Ouch. For one thing, I knew that wasn’t a good thing for a date. More importantly, I couldn’t believe I didn’t have any idea where I wanted to be in 10 years. I mean, this is standard stuff, stuff I would’ve had figured out if you had asked me a year ago. But since my life was turned upside down last April, I had been focusing so much on my day-to-day being that I hadn’t been thinking about my future.

I thought about it a lot the following couple of days. I asked myself a lot of questions as I spaced out at work staring at my computer screen. I asked myself what I would do if I had no boundaries, no limits, if money wasn’t a factor. 

The answer was instantaneous. I would open a coffee bar. I had dreamed secretly of owning a coffee bar since I was in high school, but I had never considered it a possibility. Owning a business was something other people did, not me. I couldn’t; I wouldn’t know how, I always figured.

But then I thought, why not me? Why couldn’t I do the thing I had always dreamed of doing, but dared not pursue?

That one date, that one question set me on the path I am on today. I bought a copy of Ladies Who Launch and began to define my dream. I learned how to dream even bigger, to flesh out my plans, to become comfortable with speaking about my dream. I even named it and registered the domain for a future website.

Then I was poking through the bookstore again when someone recommended The E-Myth Revisited to me. I started reading it and realized how little I knew about my intended business despite having worked at two cafes. So, I applied for weekend positions at Starbucks and a couple of the local independents.

Tomorrow is my first day at one of those cafes. Tomorrow will be the most concrete step I’ve taken since I started allowing myself to believe that I can do this. Sometimes I pick my head up from my unbelievably busy life and take a look around. I can’t believe how much I’ve been able to accomplish in the past couple of months.

Oh, and I still got the third date.

Dream big. Baby step.