This morning, as I sit here with my coffee, I am looking through itunes for music to listen to while I list. If you’ve never listened to music while you are listing, in the spirit of doing new things this month, why don’t you try it? It’s not that weird. I mean, people listen to music to exercise, right? It’s motivational!

Today’s challenge is kind of different. I want you to pick three songs that make you feel like moving, or have goal-oriented inspirational lyrics. Post your choices, and then tell us WHY you picked them. Here are my three:

note: these choices are pretty embarrassing now that I think about it, two of them are kid’s songs!!

1. “All Star”, Smash Mouth. My kids heard this on the Shrek movie, and wanted it on their ipods. Somehow, it ended up on mine!! It’s a good “warm up” tune, lol. Profound lyrics include…”Doesn’t make sense not to live for fun, your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb” Huh? That doesn’t make any sense!! But, girls, remember this…”only shootin’ stars break the mold!”

2. “The Good Life” by Hanna Montana. Confession time: I am shallow and materialistic. I like nice stuff, who doesn’t? Now, I’ll never be in Jimmy Choos …lol, but I do like to shop! Let’s face it. None of us do ebay for personal fulfillment or to help society, we do it for money. My dh, who is the sweetest, most quiet guy-rocks out to some EMINEM song about making money on his ipod before he goes to work some days!  We all have to feed our inner capitalist, huh? Plus this HM song has GREAT memories attached, Scarlet and I love to sing it together in the car. :heart:

3. The best motivational song of all time, in my opinion- “Unwritten” by Natasga Bedingfield. “Reaching for something in the distance, so close you can almost taste it” LOVE LOVE LOVE this song!!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!!

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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These daily challenges have brought out *the absolute best* in so many of you! You don’t know what an encouragement it is to me to read your success stories.

But you girls know-that this challenge has not brought you success, right? Your successes have nothing to do with HCTS, the 280 Challenge, or little ole me. If you are confused by this statement, answer these questions:

• Who selected the item for resale? (hint: YOU!)
• Who did all the prep work for the listing-the ironing, the research, etc? (YOU!)
• Who took all those pictures? (clue: not me!!)
• Who listed the item? (that would be, YOU!!)
• Who built and maintained their ebay reputation? (YOU!)
• Who took care of the sale, and shipped the item? (wait for it…hmmmm…YOU!)

You are a person who makes things happen in your life, rolls with the punches, and keeps pushing through!!

You cannot tailor make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations before they arise.

~Zig Ziglar~

I know nothing about golf, but I love me some Zig Ziglar!

Look in the mirror, friend-you are awesome!

Challenge: List something with stripes or polka dots!

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Believe In Yourself And Your
Dreams Will Come True
Know what you can and want to do in life.
Set goals for yourself and work hard to achieve them.
Strive to have fun every day.
Use your creativity as a means of expressing your feelings.
Be sensitive in viewing the world.
Develop a sense of confidence.
Be honest with yourself and with others.
Follow your heart and adhere to your own truths.
Know that the more you give the more you will receive.
Believe in yourself and your dreams will come true.
~ Susan Polis Schutz

TODAY’S CHALLENGE: List today with the goal of SELLING the item within a week, or by the end of the challenge at the latest. Sounds simple, huh? Not for me. I always try to go for the highest price, not the quickest sale. Today…join me…in listing something “priced to sell”. Don’t give away the farm, of course-but be purposeful in trying to move an item out of your house!

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Today’s Dreams Are
Tomorrow’s Successes
Don’t be afraid of high hopes
or plans that seem to be out of reach.
Life is meant to be experienced,
and every situation allows for
learning and growth.
Motivation is a positive starting point,
and action places you on a forward path.
A dream is a blueprint
of a goal not yet achieved;
the only difference between the two
is the effort involved in attaining
what you hope to accomplish.
Let your mind and heart urge you on;
allow the power of your will
to lead you to your destination.
Don’t count the steps ahead;
just add up the total
of steps already covered,
and multiply it by
faith, confidence, and endurance.
Always remember that
for those who persist,
today’s dreams are transformed
into tomorrow’s successes.
~ Kelly D. Caron ~

How appropriate for us today, huh? I am especially inspired by these lines:

Don’t be afraid of high hopes
or plans that seem to be out of reach.

If you are reading this, if you are doing this challenge-you WEREN’T AFRAID!! That is something to be proud of in itself!!

A dream is a blueprint
of a goal not yet achieved;
the only difference between the two
is the effort involved in attaining
what you hope to accomplish.

Today I want you to ask yourself, “What do I want from my business?” I want you to put it in writing. My goal initially was to make some extra money, so that we can do fun things and not have to scrape together a mortgage payment by the skin of our teeth every month. Just this morning, I realized I have actually realized my dream. There was no magic moment when it happened, and there was no boss there to hand me a promotion, fancy title, or office. Now I am just “maintaining my goal”.

Don’t count the steps ahead;
just add up the total
of steps already covered,
and multiply it by
faith, confidence, and endurance.
Always remember that
for those who persist,
today’s dreams are transformed
into tomorrow’s successes.

70 is/was just a number. It is not the measure of how hard you tried, or didn’t try. If you got done 35, and it took every bit of effort you could muster-you should still be incredibly proud! We are proud of you!!

TODAY’S CHALLENGE: Good or bad, if you keep doing the same things-you will get the same results. If you keep telling yourself you can’t, you won’t. If you keep telling yourself you can, you will. Change something up today. Do something crazy, lol… Use a different template. Send something to auction. You know what is outside of your comfort zone. Do it, and tell us about it!

xoxo,

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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This is where it gets tough, people.

The excitement of the “newness” of the challenge has worn off. It’s the weekend. Your hubby’s home. You have social activities. Maybe it snowed a lot, and you should be shoveling. There are lots of reasons not to list this weekend. Ignore them. You’ve been doing that your whole life-and what has it gotten you? A whole corner/room/basement/house of unlisted inventory!!

“Stop the Insanity!!!” (anyone remember that infomercial?)

Anyhow, don’t quit now. The next 10 days or so -after the excitement of the beginning has worn off…but before the end is in sight- are going to be really hard!! But is 10 items a day harder than not having any space in your home? Not being able to pay your bills? Having to go back to work full time?

TODAY’S CHALLENGE:

Here in York, PA-we have lots of snow. I MEAN LOTS!! You should see the snow that has completely covered the screens of my SECOND STORY windows!! Today, list something in a “Lot”. If you absolutely, positively can not pull a lot together-list something white.

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This morning is a bit hectic, so I don’t have a poem for you-sorry. I know you are all big fans after yesterday!! But I did want to tell you about this:

Today is National Wear RED day!!

National Wear Red Day is the one day each year we dedicate to building awareness of risk, and raising funds for research and education on behalf of women everywhere.

Each year thousands of men and women at companies, organizations, churches, and schools wear red and Go Red to fight heart disease on this day.

You can learn more here:

http://www.goredforwomen.org/national_wear_red_day.aspx

Today’s Challenge:

LIST RED!! List at least one red item today.

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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You believe in YOU!!!

Women here at HCTS really believe in themselves, and I find it really refreshing. In my day to day life, the people I come in contact with are amazed that I work from home. They are usually doubly amazed when they see the extra “stuff” we can afford because of my income. And I don’t mean amazed like, “Wow, that’s great Rebecca!!”…it’s more like they say, “I just CAN NOT believe that you make good money without a ‘real job’!!” with raised eyebrows and while thinking I’m a big fat liar who has a rich uncle somewhere.

I say this all the time-I am SO GRATEFUL that we live in 2010, that there are computers, internet and eBay. But even if we lived in 1910, I am imagine we storks would find a way to be industrious with our time! We are a different kind of gal, aren’t we? And I like us!!

You do believe in yourself-you are here, you are doing this and succeeding!! Sometimes we don’t put two and two together, and keep thinking “I can’t”. But you CAN do it and you ARE doing it!!

Today’s Challenge:
It’s all about you today…List something that was once YOURS.

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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The main purpose of the 280 challenge is to realize that setting a GOAL is hand’s down, the BEST WAY to accomplish ANYTHING.

Is GOAL a 4 letter word to you?

It shouldn’t be. Think of a goal as an ideal. If you reach it, great. If you don’t, then every step you took in the direction of your goal is still a benefit to you, right?

Another aspect of goal setting is really visualizing yourself achieving it. That’s what we are going to work on today.

Set a goal today. Leave it as a reply for me. Put it in writing. I DARE YOU!!

In February, I will list _________________ items with my storks. When I do that, I will _____________________.

The first blank is for your number of listings. Even one a day is an acceptable goal-so don’t be shy!! The second blank is for what you imagine achieving by doing that. We can’t control if buyer’s purchase anything, so that part of the goal is out of our hands…but it’s always good to put something in writing. I’d love to own a beach house someday. Might never happen financially, but often when I feel like laying in bed longer in the morning I’ll ask myself, “Is laying here how you’re going to get a beach house?” It’s silly, but for me-it works. Examples for the second blank could be:

“pay off my Visa card.”
“put money into savings.”
“buy a new lighting kit.”
“pay for gymnastics class.”
“get a manicure:”

Here’s mine:

In February, I will list 280 items with my storks at a rate of 10 per day. When I do that, I will use the money I make to replace my kitchen floor.

And for extra bonus points (giggle), put your goal in the comments. You will see it every day. And so will everyone else!! Gulp. It’s okay, we can do this together, right?!?!
This is the last motivational 280 blog posting from me. I will continue posting them in the forum, so please join the site and do this challenge with us?

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by Rebecca
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I was trying to figure out how to wrap up my blogging week and reading the comments left on this weeks posts gave me my topic. Yesterday, Phyllis wrote:

*************

The end result is my motivation to start the process.

*************

I so hope that I did give you a bit of motivation this week. Maybe to clean your desk (like I did!) or re-think your inventory system, or implement an inventory system, or just a couple ways to make your business slightly more organized. Once the motivation strikes, I find it’s easy to get a task done…..sometimes it’s finding the motivation that’s so hard.

I’m going to leave you with this thought….

If you’re motivated, make a change now. Maybe start with something small like a quick desk clean or putting a calendar in your car.

One thing I can say for sure is if you get organized now, you will be more prepared for the great challenge that Rebecca has in store for us. Gear up now, so when all the details for the 2.28.10 challenge are revealed, you’ll be ready to dive in!

Thank you all for your comments this week and for sharing your ideas!

Filed under: Listing Challenges, Motivation by jmk_akk
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