Intro |
Porch Swing Test |
Analyze Your Options |
Build Ammunition |
Examine Your Finances |
Make Contingency Plans |
Visualize Your New Life |
Talk to Your Spouse |
Talk to Your Employer |
Create an Action Plan |
Turn in Your Resignation!
Intro
I’m Convinced, But How Do I Make it Happen?
This section provides strategies for building the necessary
courage to make a change in lifestyle. These strategies
are designed to build upon each other and will be worked through
in a step-by-step manner. The first two strategies are exercises
of self-analysis to determine the reasons for desiring a lifestyle
change. At Strategy Three, you will begin to admit to
yourself and to a few other like-minded people, the desire for
a new way of life. Courage building continues with financial
analysis and examination of work and income-earning options
(Strategies Four and Five). Powerful courage expansion takes
place at Strategies Six, Seven and Eight, as you begin to visualize
a new lifestyle and voice the desire for change to your spouse
and employer. At this point, you will have built up courage
and developed a firm belief that a new lifestyle is not only
desirable, but entirely possible. The only thing left to do
is plan a time-line and make the change happen.
The Porch Swing Test
In this first courage-building strategy, you will do an imagination
exercise. You will see yourself in your “golden” years,
on your front porch, gently swinging back and forth on a porch
swing. You will mentally review your life and think of all the
choices made. This exercise will guide you with a series of
questions to determine how happy your life choices have made
you and your family. You will review your greatest achievements
and regrets and analyze your feelings about them. You will determine
which choices were the most and least meaningful to the course
of your life. This strategy will help you determine now, which
choices made so far in your life have worked, and which have
not. You will begin to see what is truly important and what
needs to change in your life. This is a powerful visualization
technique that will firmly place you on an improved life path.
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Analyze Your Options
In this section, you will evaluate your priorities by listing
your personal reasons for wanting to change your life. You will
list lifestyle options (for example: continuing to work full
time, staying home part time, working part time, or working
at home), along with the pros and cons of each of option. Step
by step instructions will show you how to conduct this exercise,
where you will weight your responses (attach a measure of importance)
and add up the totals. This analysis will help you determine
which course of action will deliver the most benefits to your
situation. It will also help you discover areas that will need
to be addressed, such as the loss of income or stepping off
the career ladder. By the end of this section you will have
a clearer picture of your best option. You will also be able
to anticipate any possible problems with your best option. Anticipating
problems ahead of time is your best defense in calming fears
and working toward solutions.
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Build Ammunition
Here, you will gain support for your decision from those who
have “been there, done that.” You will take four
steps to positive reinforcement. You will start to actually
admit your desire to quit working outside the home, or to scale
back a too stressful lifestyle, out loud, to yourself and to
another person. This will take courage (hence, it is a
courage-building strategy). You will seek help from several
different resources, which are outlined in this section. You
will nurture and develop support and friendships with people
you see as positive life role models. At the end of this
section, you will have built your confidence a bit more by understanding
the methods of others who have gone before you.
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Examine Your Finances
In this section, you will perform what is for many the most
important function of making a lifestyle change. Scaling back
one of the family’s dual income streams will take analysis
and planning. This is the area that puts many into a panic and
causes them to remain (mistakenly) in the belief that it is
impossible to lose one of the family’s dual income streams.
In this section, you will thoroughly examine your family’s
financial situation from all angles, starting with a surprising
look at the hidden costs of working. From there, you will review
your current two-income budget and set up an expense-trimming
worksheet. You will attach a value to every expense – a
Need or a Like. Then, you will analyze every expense for methods
of trimming that budget item’s cost. The author’s
own budget worksheet with her actual family expenses is provided
and shows detail by detail how she was able to trim many expenses.
Every area of household expense is discussed in this section
with budget-cutting suggestions provided for each area. Areas
discussed include: Groceries, Clothing, Medical Needs,
Health Insurance, Utilities, Transportation, Housing, Savings,
Education, Charitable Giving, Entertainment, Vacations, Kids’ Lessons/Sports,
and more. After trimming as much as possible from the two-income
budget, you will know exactly how close you are to being able
to live on one income. Finally, you will create a new family
budget using just one income.
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Make Contingency Plans
After performing the financial analysis in the previous section
you may want to explore some alternative income-earning options. These
options will allow you to create an income while maintaining
your priority of being a home-based parent. The goal is not
to replace your current career with a new one; just to make
enough income in a part-time, or home-based endeavor to make
up any financial shortfall in your new one-income budget. You
must be creative and "think outside the box." You
will research work-at-home options and brainstorm alternatives
to a full-time job. Options discussed in this section include
starting a home-based business, working part-time on a flexible
schedule, and personal sales, i.e. eBay or yard sales. You will
create a list of several of your best opportunities for earning
extra income while maintaining a home-based life.This list will
be detailed and provide a "back-up" plan in the event
that your new one-income budget is uncomfortably tight.
A second area of extreme importance is making a job-loss contingency
plan for the working spouse. It will be an important piece of
planning to have in place after making the transition to one-income. Four
steps in making a job-loss contingency plan are presented. This
planning will help overcome any fear or pressure you and your
spouse may feel as you begin transitioning to a one-income lifestyle.
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Visualize Your New Life
You’ve done some hard work up to this point, now it’s
time for the real fun to begin!
Here, you will begin to visualize your new life. You will utilize
a unique strategy where you will set up your own personal day-long “workshop.” You
will take one complete day off – your own personal day
to step back, relax, and imagine. You will be guided through
the entire day of your own workshop. You will spend this day
at home, with a writing journal. Visualization and journaling
are two powerful techniques that will help you create a new
reality. There are several goals of this strategy. You will
begin to place yourself inside a picture of a stay-at-home lifestyle.
You will envision yourself living through an entire home-based
day and feeling what it is actually like in your own neighborhood
during the hours when most people are at work. This day will
be rewarding in many ways and will send powerful messages to
your subconscious that you are serious about creating a new
reality.
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Talk to Your Spouse
You’ve convinced yourself, now it’s time to convince
others of your plans. Talking openly and honestly to your
spouse about why you want to change the family’s current
lifestyle may be the hardest challenge you will face on the
road home. Dealing with a partner who is not understanding or
is scared of your desire to change your lifestyle and quit your
job may be one of the more difficult situations you will have
to overcome. It can be done! Working together as a team
is the goal for this section. Here, you will learn how to present
your case to your spouse by using all of the ammunition and
planning you have done up to this point. You will learn how
to say what you want in a non-threatening manner and in a calm,
clear convincing tone of voice. You will be able to review concerns
and discuss options. By the end of this section, you and your
spouse will have a firm resolve to change your lifestyle and
will begin to plan a time-line to make it happen.
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Talk to Your Employer
In this section, you will continue voicing your desire to make
a change in lifestyle. Now, it will become necessary to
speak with your employer. You will learn how to inquire about
options to full-time employment at your company. Your decision
is made, it can’t hurt to inquire about part-time or work-from-home
options, if this is among your contingency planning. This section
discusses the pros and cons of part-time work arrangements,
how to research your company’s options, and how to create
a professional part-time work proposal. You will work
from a position of strength and will understand your limitations
when asking for things that may not be the current norm in your
company. Leaving your employment on good terms without
burning any bridges is discussed.
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Create an Action Plan
You will now be prepared to create your own action plan outlining
why you are changing your lifestyle and how you will make it
happen. You will learn how to list your goals for the new arrangement
and to plan your time line for coming home. An important part
of this process is writing down your non-financial goals for
the future. The author’s own action plan with her goals
for an at-home life is presented. You will learn to think about
your own heart-felt goals for your family. Finally, you will
plan your own time-line to make your exit out of the workplace.
How long to wait and what to offer your employer as you prepare
to leave is discussed. Pursuing your goals in this manner, with
a concrete plan and a reasonable time-line, will provide a road
map for making your dream a reality.
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Turn in Your Resignation!
Writing your resignation letter is a powerful courage-building
exercise even if you haven’t entirely decided to come
home. Writing the actual words about why you are quitting - having
to put on paper your explanation and time-line - will help convince
your subconscious that you are serious. You will learn how to
write this all-important memorandum or letter to your boss at
work. The proper tone is imperative. Your goal will be to leave
with confidence and conviction, and without burning any bridges.
Leaving in a manner that garners respect from your employer
and colleagues is very important. This last step takes courage,
but you will be well-prepared. You will understand that you
are leaving for the best of reasons, that you are entering a
new phase of life, and it won’t be the last.
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