because I didn't want to hear it. "The first stage of any cure is admitting the problem. The hardest part of any cure is facing the solution" :) I do know tha

because I didn't want to hear it. "The first stage of any cure is admitting the problem. The hardest part of any cure is facing the solution" :) I do know that I want autonomy, and not having to rely on anyone financially You could easily achieve this on very little money; but this is a very broad and non-specific aim whioch covers anyone from the millionaire to the hermit (and, arguably, better describes the hermit). I'm doing an Msc in project management at the moment and we just did a section about why projects fail; the number one reason was a failure to specify the problem to be solved in enough detail. Many marital disagreements are about money. Many lives get ruined by poverty. Not having to worry about money simply makes life easier. The important thing to remember is that having lots of money is not necessarily a solution for this - or rather it certainly ain't the only solution. For me I've often thought that I'd like to be rich enough @ 30 to be a music composer. Well, if you have a talent then there is a lot of money in that area (my brother is setting up to be a composer, does very nicely even while finishing off his degree). If you don't have the ability to do that as a job then, yeh, that sounds like a pretty concrete/specific aim to go for! Fix on that and flesh it out as an idea. Write it down and stick it up somewhere prominent. Break it down into steps/things you will need. Then really dedicate to achieving it. My goals are not particularly finance oriented any more and so might be a little wierd :) Only one requires actual serious amounts of money (and, really, that is the "long term dream" I allow myself). - live on a narrow boat for a reasonable period of time (status: looking at buying one now, sticking point is decent but not insanely expensive internet access) - have a successful company by 27 (status: working on it, but this is too general at the moment and I need to concrete it better first) - marry someone amazing (status: found her but she slipped the net :) working on that) - be respected by people [by which I mean earn a position of respect somewhere important] (status: very hard, harder than I thought. though I have a little/growing respect in my work niche here in the UK) - be respected by my employees by a) leading the charge at the company and b) being an understanding boss (status: requires my own company...) - write a piece of open source code that is used "universally" and is regarded as awesome by at least someone :) (status: this could well be fluke to achieve) - live in a small whitewashed cottage in Cornwall (I know the one I want, currently a wreck) - learn to fly, fly a jet (status: problematic as it a serious piece of time is needed to achieve it) - go into space (status: pipe dream, but am determined to achieve it in time)