How to Create a Realistic 5 Year Life Plan
Have you planned out the next five years of your life? Most people don’t plan ahead that far. Most don’t even plan out the next day. Imagine how much you could accomplish over the next five years if you made a reasonable plan and stuck to it. Without a plan your life is unlikely to change much. You put yourself at the mercy of luck.
Consider these aspects of your life:
- Finances. Think about where you want to be financially. Consider income, net worth, debt, savings, and investments. Are there new income streams you want to create? What are your future plans for spending? Do you want to purchase a house? A boat? An investment property?
- Health. What are your current health challenges? How much do you want to weigh? What type of diet do you want to follow? How fit do you want to be?
- Career. Where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you want to be working? What do you want to be doing? Do you need to go back to school? What is your dream job?
- Relationships. Are there any relationships you’d like to create or dissolve? Do you want to have children or more children?
- Personal Development. Do you want to learn to speak Spanish or to play the piano? Would you like to learn how to dance? What would you like to learn or to become? What skills do you need to acquire to make the most of the next five years?
- Adventure. What would you like to do? Climb a mountain? Go skydiving? See a volcano? What adventures would you like to experience over the next five years?
Write down what you want for each of these six areas of your life. Once you’ve completed that, begin the process of making a plan for the future. It’s not enough to know where you’re going. You must plan your path, too.
These strategies will help you to create a plan and execute it:
- Set goals. Create a few goals for each area of your life and set deadlines for each goal. Avoid just having long-term goals. It’s important to have shorter-term goals that lead up to your bigger goals. Need help setting, strategizing and implementing goals? Check out the The Goal Digger Assessment Strategy here.
- It’s hard to maintain focus on goals that require more than 10 weeks to reach. Break your goals down into smaller chunks.
- Write a plan. You know what you want to accomplish. You have goals. Create a detailed plan about what you want to accomplish over 10-week segments of time. Just start at the end and keep working back to the present day. Make beginning simple enough that you could literally start doing something today.
- Create habits. Goals are easy to achieve if you can create the right habits. The challenge is figuring out the right habits and then implementing them. With effective habits, success is a cinch.
- There’s a lot of material available on how to create habits. Educate yourself. It’s an incredibly valuable skill to have.
Need help strategizing and implementing your goals? Check out this video.
Choose a direction for your life by choosing a destination.
Most people fail to plan their lives in any meaningful way. We often keep our focus too short and on the now versus thinking long term and towards the future.
Planning in advance for 5 years is more realistic and easier to visualize.
Hopefully I’ve given you a few things to ponder on as it relates to looking forward. The more prepared you are in advance, the less stress you will encounter when the time approaches.
Until next time, blessings and peace.
My husband and I like to plan our goals and dreams together. We write them down, then go over them once a month and see where we are at with individual personal goals, business goals for each of us, and family-oriented goals. It helps so much to write it down and have accountability.
I totally agree. My husband and I do the same. We are both accountable to each other and our family.
I never thought of doing this but yeah, you are right, planning in advance will keep us stress-free and focussed! Thanks for the tips ☺
Yes… I’ve learned in advance to plan.
I have never sat down to make a 5 year plan. It is a wonderful idea though! I will have to do that.
Yes.. it truly puts things in perspective.
SOgood to have a 5 year plan. With two tiny kiddos my plan is survival LOL
Yes.. I can only imagine. That was me. They are now 22 & 20.
Thank you for the great advice. I also have a hard time planning more than 10 weeks out so I like the idea of breaking it up into smaller chunks.
Oh yes! You’re welcome. Small chunks helps keep you accountable and less discouraged.
Ooooo lots of great tips!!! I’ve never really planned for 5 years, but I have made 2-3 year goals! I’m pretty good at kicking them too!!!!
Thank you! Awesome! Any goal is a great goal as long as it is achieved.
I am a bit of a dreamer and can create unrealistic goals for the future. I will use your techniques more often when creating goals that are more grounded.
Dreaming is good if the dream is manifested. Be specific and set small goals to reach big ones.
I think it’s so important to have goals and set a course for accomplishing them. I love how you broke down the different aspect of your life to think about.
Thank you! Yes.. I used to be all over the place. Goal setting has really helped me achieve.