Let the Downsizing Begin

I recently listened to a recording by Dave Ramsey about High Performance Achievers. One of the points is this: To achieve big things, you need to first decide on a Big Hairy Goal (BHG). Something realistic, but that feels out of reach (example: becoming the president is definitely a BHG, but is not exactly realistic). The BHG needs to be big enough that it will require you to go outside of your comfort zone and it will also require God to show up in a BIG way. Then decide what you will sacrifice and what you will not sacrifice in order to reach BHG. 

Our Big Hairy Goal is being debt free. We decided we will sacrifice our possessions and lifestyle to be debt free. We absolutely will not sacrifice our family.

Deciding on what we will not sacrifice has made our BHG more of a challenge. It would be easier to work more hours than it is to change our lifestyle, but we've learned that sacrificing our time as a family isn't worth the cost. So, by making a commitment to put our family first we will sacrifice some of our comfortable lifestyle instead. This includes our house. 

In my last post I mentioned that we put our house on the market. We have been in contact with our realtor for over a year now, so although this may seem like a sudden decision, it has actually been on our minds for quite a while.

The decision to list had a few parameters on it. We would take it off the market if it hadn't sold by mid-June since I would be hugely pregnant by that time. We also agreed not to hide all the stuff that couldn't be out during showings. We figured we are planning to downsize anyway, so the extra stuff had to go. We said goodbye to five pieces of furniture, over 200 articles of clothing, and several household items. With some serious help from amazing friends, we did it. We got the house staged and on the market in just one week. 

We have been praying that if downsizing is God's plan for us that he would orchestrate the pieces. We took a little step off of square center to allow Him to move, and wow, has He shown up. It is going to be quite the adventure and we can't wait to share it with you. To better do that, we have established a Facebook page. We invite you to "like" the page to more closely follow our downsizing journey. 

“For God did not give us a spirit of fear,
but a spirit of power, of love and of self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:7