Not Quite Betty Crocker

Yesterday I wrote about one of my resolutions: Spend Big.  This resolution is similar in trying to build mechanisms for dealing with personal quirks.

This quirk: I dream but don’t plan, plan but don’t dream, and then don’t actually do anything at all.

Let me explain.  I’m a practical girl, a cheap-ass, and someone who wants a quick pay-off.  I’ve lived in rentals for most of my adult life so spending extra on something sturdy and lasting always lost out to making changes quickly and inexpensively.

While I often look at pretty pictures and dream, those ideas rarely get turned into a feasible plan.  When I do plan, I limit myself to what’s easily sourced, paid for, and slapped on rather than dreaming.  Regardless of the scope of planning or dreaming, though, nothing gets done.  I dream and plan and re-dream and re-plan and somehow live in my imagination rather than the mess that is our house.

So.  New plan.  At some point this year, I am going to dream my way through every room in our house, building inspiration files and paying attention to what we need now (and guessing what we might need later).  Then I’ll make functional needs lists and mock-up some color schemes and find things I’d like to buy or make – the plan, but based on the dream, not based on what I can do with twenty bucks and a weekend.

{Yes, of course, I’ll review and adjust with my husband, but I’m learning to accept that my process and his process are really, really different, so things work better if I start a plan and he tweaks it.  Remind me to come up with a resolution for not being so pissy when he tweaks the bejeezus out of something he’s had no hand in creating.  But that’s for another post. Or rather, series of posts on relationship resolutions.}

And last?  I’ll pick one small thing and do it.  I’m often left paralyzed by the overwhelming-ness of a big change, but the best plans are those you act on.  So it won’t matter which one thing I do, only that something (anything!) get done.  Having a plan that costs out to a ton of money doesn’t mean we have to spend it all at once, but it does mean that anything we spend should move us in that direction.

Ideally I can use the same process for vacations (where I tend to limit my options to those theoretically costing $300 and a weekend, but of course we spend thousands anyway) and job stuff (where I chicken out on insisting on big changes in favor of staying in favor with people who aren’t responsible for my career).

Dream Big, Plan Big, Do Just One Thing.