Motivational Monday: You Don’t Have To Do EVERYTHING. Just Do SOMETHING.

I just realized that my last blog was a week ago exactly. Not good. I try to blog at least three days a week and my goal will once again be to write a DAILY blog.

There. What better place to make a goal than on a Motivational Monday blog??

And I WILL write the next four days. Why?? Because I SAID SO. I promised myself JUST NOW to commit to daily blogs this week. And not only that, but I promised it in WRITING where all of you can read it and keep me accountable.

One of the major obstacles to us getting things done on a day to day basis is the feeling of being overwhelmed.

We have a messy house and can’t possibly clean it all before the kids get home from school or relatives come for that visit later in the week.

We have a stack of bills and we’re drowning in debt.

Let’s take a look at these two scenarios briefly.

A house didn’t get messy in one day (perhaps short of only a natural disaster). And it isn’t realistic to think it will be cleaned up in one day, either.

So do this instead–spend an hour right now in ONE room. Just one room. My rule of thumb is usually the one people will see first if they come for an unannounced visit (HATE that, by the way). So spruce up your entryway. Your living or family or dining room perhaps. Make it PERFECT.

You can’t make the WHOLE HOUSE perfect. But you can make ONE room perfect. Believe me, with six kids, I don’t think we will EVER see a perfect HOUSE. Even though we get pretty darned close.

So make it your goal to make perfect ONE room. If it takes more than an hour and you have the time, do it. If not, vow to spend another hour tomorrow. Unless you are remodeling, moving major furniture, or have rooms the size of a 747, chances are no room will take more than a couple of hours to make perfect.

How about that stack of bills and mountain of debt?

I used to make the huge mistake of getting so overwhelmed by bills that I just would stick them in my office and get them out of sight. As if stashing them away would make the burden of debt disappear. Nope. Only makes the debt grow faster and guess what? Yep. MORE feeling of being overwhelmed.

One of my financial mentors and favorite motivational writers and speakers is Larry Winget.

A real gem I learned from him is pure common sense–and genius–all at once.

Most of us can’t pay ALL of our bills ALL at once.

But most of us can pay SOMETHING. So pay SOMETHING! Even a DOLLAR is better than no payment at all.

So instead of being scared to death of a $500 medical bill and not paying ANY of it, I started writing checks for $25 or $50 or $100 at a pop. Whatever I could afford at that time. Sometimes I’d add a note saying “Thanks for your patience. I am trying to pay you as soon as possible. Thanks for working with me.”

You see, most companies and debtors WILL work with you to some degree as long as you are reasonable and up front with them. And of course, they’d rather see $100 of their money instead of ZERO money.

Be prepared to pay interest perhaps, but that is to be expected. Although I have found some debtors will waive the interest if you are diligent in paying down the debt and make the effort to state your situation to them.

So if you got a huge bill today, call the company up and see if they will work with you. Pay them as much as you can TODAY without leaving yourself totally broke.

I always stack the bills in order of urgency, too.

You want to pay the ones that warn of debt collector’s being contacted, etc. That means those are REALLY overdue. Make an effort to pay those down first if you can.

With credit cards, try to pay the higher interest credit cards down first if possible. The credit card bill that’s $5,000 at 25% interest is a bigger monkey on your back than the $10,000 credit card bill at 5%.

Again, common sense. But common sense isn’t so common anymore.

So don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. I know, easier said than done, right?

But life is often made up of seemingly overwhelming adversities and obstacles that are neither if broken down and taken care of in chunks.

So take things in stride, break them down into manageable bites, and you will soon feel the state of mind that all of us strive for…

RELIEF.

Remember, you don’t have to do EVERYTHING today. But you DO have to do SOMETHING.

Have a great Monday and a great week!!