For the last few years, wherever I go, people want to discover how to become a career renegade. They all want to know how to turn something, whether it’s knitting, painting, writing, or growing grapes, into enough cash to call it a living. Especially when everyone around them keeps telling them it’s just not possible.

The conversation inevitably turns to the two giant questions that stop nearly everyone in their tracks:

1. What if the thing that makes my heart sing doesn’t pay enough to support me?
2. Or, what if it could be lucrative, but only if I was at the top of the field?

The New Year is upon us and if you are like so many, you made some resolutions and already have relented or let go of some of your ambitions. Every year millions of people do just that. There is such hope in the approach of a new beginning and yet it is so easy to just let that hope slip into forgotten dreams of the past.

I have spoken with many people do not remember their New Year resolutions from years past. If you think about it for a moment, do you remember your resolutions from five years ago, from two years ago, indeed, from last year? Why is it we forget so quickly? First we resign ourselves to relenting and then we forget what we relented–is that instructional? I think so.

“The mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.” – Confucius

With any undertaking, it’s important to have the right tools. The same is true when you simplify, scale back, live more frugally and sustainably, and make room in your life for things you love.

We’ve already discussed several key tools. The Short List:

1. Determining your essentials and eliminating the rest.
2. A “thriving” mindset where you focus on what you love, not what you don’t have.
3. An “enough” mindset, where you realize you already have enough, and stop wanting more.
4. A plan to reduce expenses, both small and large.
5. Sound financial habits.
6. Debt-elimination strategies.

“Debt is the worst poverty.” – Thomas Fuller

It was only a few years ago when I was overloaded with debt – so much so that I couldn’t make all my payments and I had numerous debts sent to several collection agencies. I had creditors calling me for late payments, and I was juggling them, constantly stressed about how I was going to make my car payment and make rent. It’s hard to imagine those days now – the unbearable burden of that debt – because as of this year, I am debt free!

It’s an amazingly liberating feeling to be free of debt. Your money is your own, and you have breathing room in your budget for saving, investing, and buying what you need.