I Am My Own Worst Enemy....
I started out the new year with high hopes and high expectations of what I wanted to accomplish and it only took three weeks for me to feel like I've been pushed off track.Why does this keep happening to me? I'm not trying to make excuses for why I can't do something, it just that I feel like I'm lost, not knowing which way to turn, or what to do next. So instead of doing something, I end up doing absolutely nothing which leaves me feeling like an utter failure.
One of the most common offenders of my feeling of failure has to do with our finances. I promised myself that I would not spend money needlessly on Etsy, or at any other online store so I could work towards paying down our debt which desperately needs to be attended to. But instead of keeping to my much needed promise, I have spent money that I could not afford to part with which has also caused issues with my monthly membership at WA. It is literally my inability to pay a bill that makes me feel worse than anything else in my life.
There are moments when I just want to give up, but I know that I need to keep pushing forward, to at least get something done in the course of the day, but something as simple as getting one thing listed on eBay leaves me feeling like I haven't done enough. I am beyond angry at myself because I know all these problems come from within and the hardest thing for me is finding a way to fix this once and for all. I hate my job and I know I want to stick with WA for the long haul, yet my boulder of debt constantly weighs on my shoulders, pushing me to find instant gratification methods to making money which I know do not exist.
Either you have to spend time to make money, or you have to spend money to make money, and money is something I don't have, but I do have time. There is no reason/excuse for why I haven't completed my keyword research, there is no reason why I haven't moved forward in the 30 day club except for something inside me that keeps pushing me off on different tangents making me my own worst enemy when it comes to getting anything done.
Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin yet again, but I do not know what else to do. I have a bunch of stuff in the house that needs to go away, and all I can think of is to sell it on Etsy, but the results of my efforts thus far have not met my expectations. Three boxes of ribbon, and maybe a dozen rolls have been sold so far. Maybe I need to suck it up and just throw it all on eBay in a huge lot, but I KNOW that is the surefire way to deliver the smallest profit for my efforts, but the clutter itself stresses me out so it needs to go. The office is unusable and I can't keep working from the kitchen table so I need to do something and fast!
Do I put my Etsy shops on hiatus, which I really don't want to do, so I can clean house, or do I find a way to balance time between the two, which I have not been particularly successful with as of yet. I need to find the strength needed to get this stuff done and I think the only way that may happen is to finally implement some form of To Do list, painful as it may be, but I really don't think I have much of a choice as I fear its the only thing I can do to get myself under control as I am my own worst enemy when left to my own devices.
Your very honest post suggests to me that your major issue is that your actions proceed from a deemed crisis (needing to pay bills), rather than as part of a subconscious-driven set of steps toward a goal.
So what have you got? You want to clear the desk of paperwork; to be self-supporting; to be happy in your day to day work, and pay the bills.
It is good to analyse where you are, as you need to define a starting point. But it can be counter-productive if you paint it too black. Look at what you have. You are smart, eloquent, wanting to make a difference, but you are hedging by acknowledging procrastination and burdensome debt.
Write your list, review it every night. Decide on a time period you are prepared to devote to change. Let's say, 15 minutes. Decide on a time at which this period will commence. Let's say 5:00 am. (Why 5:00 am? Because the phone doesn't ring, the usual suite of unavoidable interruptions doesn't happen at that time). Whatever time you set, (and if you're a night person, make it 11:00 pm), try it out. After two nights, if it's too long, late, early .... change it. But do something every day. After 30 days you will be surprised and fascinated that you are now eager to get to that time slot. This stuff works. It really does. And it works for positive or negative in equal measure. See yourself as positive, happy, making decisions and moving through life doing what you love ... you get what you wish for.
Regarding the ribbons etc, what is it worth to sell? What did it cost you? What if you decided to make a positive assessment of your time value re potential profit, and realised that you could better invest your time in something like WAU? If your house burnt down and you lost it all, would you start the same business again? Can you convert your higher payment debt to longer term personal loan lower repayment debt?
I don't think you are your own worst enemy, yet. Put aside any thoughts of the "stigma" of losing on a business, and make a decision. Edison failed 10,000 times before the light stayed on. Is the ribbon business part of your dream for ten years' time, or was it a step in the right direction which has proven to be off the track?
Before you can work out your "how", you need to know your "why". You might say this is easy, but do you really know why you want to do what you have set yourself.
If you don't know your why, you will always find an easier how.
Don't despair! Just make a short "to do" list for a day ahead instead of a Napoleon type plan with 100 things to do knowing you won't have a chance to do a half of them.
