"There is more to life than staying sober." -- James A., AA member

An Alcoholics Anonymous member wants to stay sober. But there is more to staying sober than wanting to stay sober and having a plan to stay sober.

James A. got sober in 1955 and stayed sober until he died in 2005. He told others who wanted to get sober and stay sober that they needed to have goals beyond staying sober. Then they needed a plan to reach these goals.

Similarly, there is more to staying out of debt than wanting to get out of debt.

There are negative sanctions for being in debt. They range in intensity. There are far more positive sanctions for being out of debt. They range in greater intensity.

It's kind of like Adam in the garden. There was only one thing he was not allowed to do. Everything else was legitimate. There was only one negative sanction facing him: death. The positive sanctions were so numerous as to be effectively infinite. He ignored these goals and went for this one: to know good and evil. Especially evil.

You need goals. You need a plan to reach these goals. You need positive sanctions in your plan to reach your goals.

You know all about negative sanctions for not paying off your debts. But at some point, if you follow the advice on this site, you will reach the goal of being debt-free. Then what?

It is like a fat person who sets a weight goal and reaches it. Then what?

To stick to a plan for getting out of debt and making the negative sanctions go away, you need a plan for achieving personal goals that will produce positive sanctions.

Your first step in setting your lifetime goals is to understand what your calling is. What is a calling? This: the most important thing you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace.

It takes action to convert a to-do list to a changed life. Taking action is the difficult part. Taking systematic action over a lifetime is rare. This is why so few people leave behind the legacy that they could leave. Their lives dribble through their fingers.