What were you doing in September 2019? Did you start planning anything or doing anything that got you to where you are now? Did you consider what you might like to be doing in the fall of 2022?
Five years is too long for a plan. Actually three years is too long for a plan as well, but I have found it’s about right for getting a general sense of what you do or don’t want to change, and for putting it into practice bit by bit without it being too overwhelming.
Five years just feels ‘forever’ away and it becomes too easy to avoid getting started. And one year is not enough time to make some kinds of changes. But in three years, (especially in the absence of a global pandemic!) you can have a big(ish) vision and still break it down into doable chunks that you can picture. It can involve new habits, new jobs or businesses, a new living arrangement, a better financial situation, new hobbies etc. All doable in three years.
In three years, you could ‘retrain’ and change careers, or open new doors. (Think: new certification or degree, new professional network, a portfolio of more relevant experience)
In three years you could be pretty good at a skill you don’t yet have at all (think: refinishing furniture, playing the harmonica, building fairy gardens, fixing bikes).
In three years, you could renovate an old house, while still doing a job.
In three years, you could save enough money to travel for an extended trip.
In three years (or less) you could go from sluggish to being in fantastic shape.
In three years, you could have the downpayment for a house or camper or new electric car.
In three years, you could have taken steps to address a mental health issue or a physical health issue and already be on the other side of recovery.
In three years, you could have written and published a book.
Of course, three years is also long enough that the goals you have right now, might change.
You might think you want to learn how to groom dogs and set up your own grooming parlor in your garage, but once you’re in dog-grooming school, you realize you actually really like working with difficult dogs because you’re great with them, so you decide to become a dog behavioralist instead. That’s fine - it’s not until you start to go down a path that you learn the details that might shape the ultimate outcome.
Or perhaps all you know right now is that you want to work with dogs, and year one is just going to be all about exploring options. Then you will figure out what’s next. All good.
Creating a vision and steps to get there is not the same as locking yourself into a rigid plan. But the point of having a vision at all is that it should take you somewhere other than where you are right now. It starts to get you moving.
I believe that creating our next chapters is a deliberate process. It’s difficult to create a better community or planet when we’re also not in the habit of looking ahead and understanding what we want our own next chapters to look like.
In three years, for example, I will have just turned 50 (yikes….I literally realized this only as I wrote it. This post is…..timely!)
Picture yourself in three years…..really picture yourself…and ask yourself some questions. For me, these might be:
What do I want to be good at in my 50s?
Where (and how often) do I want to travel?
What do I want to have in the bank?
What kind of people do I want to have around me?
How do I want to spend my weekends? And my weekdays?
Is there something I want to accomplish?
How do I want to feel at 50?
What will make my 50s my best decade yet?
When I turn 50, what will I be glad I started (or stopped) at 47?
Now you….