As you read this issue, think about these insightful words from Sarah Susanka:

What I discovered is that when you make the time and the space for what you long to do, everything else shifts to accommodate it. It never works the other way around. If you wait until there's time to do what you want, you'll be waiting until your eighty-fifth birthday.

Most often, however, our dreams are created out of time, not money. In Jean-Louis Servan-Schrieber's The Art of Time, he makes this observation: "We think much more about the use of money, which is renewable than we do about the use of time, which is irreplaceable." So how do we make room for our dreams? It starts with investing our time.

Know what matters most to you. Without a sense of priority, time gets spent with no notice of what we get in return. Most of us don't arrive at clarity about those priorities by accident. It takes moving away from other people's notions of what we should be doing, experimenting wildly, and thoughtfully taking inventory from time to time to see if we're in alignment with those priorities.

Eliminate what you don't want. Have you ever known anyone who kept dating someone who was quite unsuitable, but refused to give that person up thinking they'd hang on to what they had until the right person came along? Too many people stay stuck in a life they've outgrown using that same sort of logic. The problem is, it doesn't work. We have to open up the space for what we do want and that usually entails getting rid of what we don't want first.

What Not To Wear, the popular program on TLC, always starts their transformation by cleaning out the closet of their makeover subject There's no holding on to inappropriate garments once Stacy and Clinton show up. It's often emotionally challenging for the participant to see her wardrobe tossed into a trash can. However, it's the tradeoff she has to make if she's going to reinvent her appearance.

Pick one and stick with it. Dreams or excuses? You can't have both. Excuses take up time, energy and divert us while deceiving us into thinking we're being prudent. Excuses are never prudent. However, they can insidiously take over if we don't consciously choose to give our dreams a higher priority.

Give up devotion to the routine. Schools, corporate workplaces and time management gurus are monuments to the scheduled life. That may be efficient, but it doesn't serve our joyfully jobless journeys. In order to live creatively, you can't be trapped in doing things in a single certain way, even if that way appears to be highly efficient.

Change a habitual way of doing things every single day. It doesn't have to be something big to qualify. Instead of your usual coffee and toast for breakfast, have jam on a baguette with tea. Learn to speak Italian. Teach some kid the thing you do best. Make client calls after lunch instead of first thing in the morning. Do your housework on roller skates. Get your family and friends involved in a contest to market your business and offer a $100 prize for the best idea. Wake up your soul.

Every new goal, project or dream requires a willingness to give up something else, to make a trade in order to receive something better. Time to clear some clutter?

The brilliant Chris Brogan shared a short video on Success and Excuses. As always, he packs a lot in a little space. Take a look.

If you haven't read the amazing and inspiring Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland, add it to your library right away. This is the true story of art meeting the entrepreneurial spirit and producing extraordinary results. It's now in paperback and I'm being inspired all over again on my third reading of it.

Then on Halloween I'm spending the day in San Antonio with two get-started seminars: Making a Living Without a Job and Cheap Tricks: Marketing on a Shoestring. I don't think there's a bigger bargain around than the Northside community ed program in San Antonio.

I don't usually repeat special events three times in six months, but after seeing the clarity and focus that came out of the first Follow Through Camp, I knew I wanted to make it available to more people. Since this program can only work with a small group, that meant repeating it. It took me years to discover the things that you could learn in just 2 days by coming to Camp. Even though we ask all participants to choose a project for Camp, we're actually sharing tools that can be used over and over again to bring ideas to life.

Follow Through Camp is rapidly approaching, (November 6 & 7) but we've still got those last two spots available. I can't think of a better way to get ready for the new year. Alice Barry and I will do our best to take away your excuses and help you clear space so you can move your vision forward.

Follow Through Camp

Half measures avail us nothing on the Joyfully Jobless Journey, either. Make room--and time--for your passion and you've given yourself a head start.

Barbara