Days of Doubt

It was summer, last year, when I figured out what I wanted to do with the next 5 years of my life. Well, that's not exactly right. I believed I could do it all at once and spreading out the tasks to five years seemed like wasting time. I knew, however, that what I like to call "The Mountain" had dropped out of the sky, nearly fully formed, and it was going to take me a while to scale it.

It's now January. It's a new year. I got a nice Christmas letter from a cousin of mine who lives in Illinois, and she asked if I had made progress in my goal to move to Colorado. I had given her a run down of my plans last year - to get myself out of debt. To sell my house and move back out west, a place I've wanted to return to since 1995. To obtain financing for a retail franchise and become a businesswoman. My five year plan. I was able to email her and let her know that, despite the economic setbacks facing the country, I am still on track.

Well, the funny part is that today is one of my Days of Doubt. Also what's funny is that my Days of Doubt happen, not when I'm doing poorly, but when I'm succeeding. I set the goal to pay off my student loan early, and I did, by nearly a year. The next goal is to raise money for an emergency savings account - something to have so I'm not hanging out there in the event of an unexpected expense. One of the money gurus of the day recommends having $1000 in savings. I didn't think I had anything near that amount - I'd been draining myself dry making quadruple payments on my loan. But I had been putting small amounts back into my savings account at the end of each month, and it turns out that I'm already half way there. I can easily raise the other half by the end of January.

How about that?

But a few days ago, a friend reminded me that "if you want to stay on track, you need to be making the changes to the house that you want to make, in order to make it rentable." I'd already shared with her that in this economy, I thought the best plan was to rent my house and not try to sell it outright. But to do that, I'd like to make some upgrades -- tile down on the kitchen floor, ceiling fans in each room, things like that. She suggested that I buy these things in advance, and get the man who said he'd do it to come out and give me an estimate. Then I could leave him the key when I took my March vacation and he could handle the kitchen tile then, and it would be waiting on me when I got home.

Doesn't that sound slick? Is that what I should use the emergency fund for? And after the emergency fund has been saved, I still have my second (and last) debt to tackle. And I have dogs to take to the vet. And I have holes I need to fill in the back yard. And do I want to get new windows to make the house more energy efficient? Do I want a home warranty, to cover those items which are aging? Will a renter care about a garden, or should I fill my vegetable garden with rose bushes? And I need to get my riding lawn mower repaired. And because I don't think it's a good idea to leave a riding lawn mower with a renter, I need to trade it in on a more modest, easier to operate push mower. And I need to trim some branches and get them burned. And I need to go through the house and consolidate my belongings, to make moving simpler.

And I need to speak to my local SCORE chapter (the counseling arm of the Small Business Administration), to get the counseling I need to understand the business aspects of franchising. I really need to get a handle on some financial concepts.

These (and more) are all the things I think about, each time I check something else off my list. I'm succeeding. Quite frankly, it's harder than the ease which comes from doing nothing. There are days I just want to do nothing. Who would know? Who would care if I never moved? These are my dreams. I wouldn't be upsetting anyone else to just forget them because of all the work.

But I'd be letting myself down. And I've done that a lot. It's hard to avoid repeating the same disappointment. It's so easy. It's so expected. Maybe I'm dreaming too big. Can I do this alone?

Days of Doubt can be a landslide.

---Laura