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Finding My Way

I've been on a bit of a journey with Self Coaching Scholars. Not the straightfoward journey that seems happy and shiny, but a muddled, murky journey. However, I am starting to look at that problem more deliberately, and I realize that I'm trying to rush ahead into the good without doing all the work and without dealing with and accommodating the bad.

One convenient thing about this month's work (it always seems particularly relevant) was thinking about my future self, and thinking about the things my future self would thank my present self for doing. It was interesting to see how that played into my thoughts about who I wanted my future self to be.

I went for the big, grandiose, thoughts of having the Soloista thing work out beyond my wildest wishes. But when I was thanking myself for all the things I did to make that work, I realized that I was not crazy about doing those things.

And that was an important clue. And, of course, it always seems to come back to how much I love doing Ebay. So I went with that again. And I was playing around with what I really wanted from Ebay. And I tried to imagine being a full-time Ebayer, which I think I would love. And I tried to think through the logistics, especially trying to think through how I would know it was time to make the jump to full time Ebay. And that was complicated, and I wasn't sitting down and thinking it through, so it was too hard to figure out. But I did think that, if I were making $100,000 a year for a full year part-time, I could definitely make that plus the costs of health care and college for Hannah as a full-timer. So, could I make $100,000 a year? That would be $2,000 a week. I'm pretty sure I can already make $500 a week. So, I started to think about $1000 a week. And, oddly enough, over the weekend, Daily Refinement had a serious about how to build a $1000 a week (in profit) Ebay business over the course of 12 weeks.

The theory makes sense. The first week you commit to listing $10 in profit, four days a week. The next week $30 in profit, four days a week, etc., until you start listing $250 in profit, four days a week. Now listing does not equal selling, but at some point, you do get there. And it's interesting to build that habit.

I started to think about listing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, and then using the weekends to source. Especially if I use Jen and the V.A. program to list, it might not take that long, and I can also use some of that time for paperwork, or use the weekend for paperwork. I do love paperwork. I even love setting up paperwork. I just have to do it.

Anyway, I was all set to get to it starting this morning, and then I let myself get freaked out before I went to bed. And I watched Project Runway until very late, and then I cancelled on myself.

Hmm.

This morning I woke up and I knew that I was trying to jump ahead and not going slowly. For example, why not just start with the $10 in profit, 4 days a week? That's better than nothing. And that will also allow me to use the extra time for the paperwork, etc. And, of course, I'm welcome to list more than $10 in profit, but the requirement means that I am listing four days a week. That's good for a practice, and that's good for building. And it will be interesting to see when/if I hit the point where it becomes difficult to list that amount.

You know what? I am going to start today. It just means that I will have a listing session tonight. Or, more to the point, I will list just 1 thing tonight.

One reason I also like this is that I know from experience that I am willing to get up super-early to work on Ebay. I have done that so many times and enjoyed it. I'm going to miss Sam when he goes back to school, but once he's off the couch I'll be able to enjoy those early mornings downstairs again.

Okay. So that's my plan for Ebay right now.


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