Life is unpredictable, hectic, distracting, and sometimes downright uncertain. If you don’t take charge of where you’re headed, it’s easy to float from one decision to the next without meaning or direction. Crafting a thoughtful five-year life plan forces you to identify the what and how of your life. By setting goals for your short-term actions and long-term achievements, you can spend the next five years living with intention.
There are numerous benefits to long-term planning. For starters, it allows you to zero in on precise goals. Research conducted by goal-setting psychologists has found that people follow through on goals when they know exactly what they want and that those goals matter to them. Creating a life plan will force you to sit with yourself, really examine your priorities, values, and what you hope to achieve. You’ll be smart about what you want to accomplish. You’ll know exactly why you want to achieve it. That knowledge fuels follow-through.
Plus, when you plan for the future, you have something to fall back on when you face a challenge or difficult decision. Behavioral psychologists believe that when you have big goals, you are less distracted because every moment you are faced with a decision, you will think about your end goal. How will this decision help me achieve my vision? If you know what you want in life, you become more focused, resilient, and consistent.
Lastly, when you have a life plan, you can measure your progress. You can check in with yourself every year, every month, and every day. Motivational scientists believe that when you acknowledge your small victories, you feel more confident in your abilities and are more likely to repeat positive behavior. Every time you meet a milestone, you will remind yourself that you are moving toward what you want in life one small step at a time.
A five-year life plan allows you to live with purpose. You’ll know your intentions for your life. You’ll measure your progress to ensure you’re consistently taking steps toward your goals. And you’ll always keep your priorities top of mind so you can continue to cultivate personal growth and life-long fulfillment. Life will still be unpredictable, hectic, and distracting, but you’ll learn how to move through it with grace.
How to Create a Five-Year Life Plan
1. Assess Your Current Situation
The first step to creating a five-year life plan is understanding your current situation. Simply put, if you don’t know where you are, you won’t be able to map out how to get to where you want to go. Life coaches recommend you ask yourself where you currently stand in your career, relationships, health, finances, and personal growth. Jot down notes concerning each category.
Reflect on what you’re doing well and where you can improve. You’ll want to think about your strengths and weaknesses. It can also be helpful to think about what you value most in life and what you’re passionate about. Goal-setting experts warn against planning for a life that doesn’t align with your values. You’ll want to set goals that you can wake up excited to work toward every day.
Try journaling your thoughts or completing a personal SWOT analysis. It can be helpful to write out your thoughts so you can more easily identify patterns and areas you’d like to focus on moving forward.
2. Set Clear and Achievable Goals
Now that you have a good understanding of your current situation, you can set goals for what you want to achieve. Goal-setting researchers commonly refer to the SMART goal method. When you want to set a goal, make sure it’s Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Specific goals should be easy to visualize. You’ll know exactly what you’re working toward. Measurable goals can be tracked over time. For example, if your goal is to improve your overall health, you may want to measure your weight, your body fat percentage, or how many miles you can run in a month.
Make sure your goals are attainable and realistic. Ambition is fantastic, but trying to achieve too much too fast can set you up for failure. Experts recommend you use your past experiences and current abilities to set a baseline for your long-term goals. Plus, your goals should be relevant to your bigger life picture. Why are you working toward this goal? How will it improve your life? Setting a time frame for your goals will create a sense of urgency.
When setting goals for your life plan, think both short-term and long-term. Short-term goals will give your life structure and something to work toward each day and week. Long-term goals will ensure you’re moving toward something bigger.
Related: 8 Valid Reasons Why It Is Important To Set Goals
3. Create a Vision for Your Future
In addition to setting goals, try visualizing your future. Visualization exercises are commonly used in sports psychology and other performance-related coaching. By visualizing your future self and life, you are mentally conditioning your mind to understand what it feels like to achieve your goals.
Take a deep dive into what your ideal life looks like. What does your ideal health look like? Your ideal relationship with your significant other? Your career? How about your friendships? It’s important that you be as specific as possible. Instead of writing “better health,” take the time to really visualize what that would look like. What changes will you make? How will you feel?
You can try visualization exercises, create a vision board, or simply write down what your future will look like in each area of your life.
4. Develop an Actionable Plan
Great intentions don’t mean anything if you don’t take action. When planning for your future, you want to make sure you develop an actionable plan. Action plan leaders recommend you prioritize each goal you hope to achieve by your values and how urgent they are.
If you’re having trouble deciding which goals are most important, map out where you’d like to be in five years and work backward. What milestones do you need to hit each year? Each month? Each week? Break your goals down into small, manageable tasks. Once you know what you want to accomplish, try writing out your daily or weekly to-do list. When you can connect your daily tasks to your bigger goals, you’ll feel more motivated to maintain consistency.
Try to revisit and edit your action plan every month or so. You may find that you complete certain goals earlier than you expected. Maybe you discover new goals that you’d like to accomplish.
5. Stay Motivated and Accountable
You know what they say: fail to plan, plan to fail. If you want to successfully fill your five years with meaning and follow-through on your life plan, you have to hold yourself accountable. Behavioral researchers believe that by checking in with ourselves regularly, we are more likely to stick to our goals.
Try scheduling a day each week or month to sit down and reflect on your progress. And if you really want to hold yourself accountable, find an accountability partner. Let a friend or family member know about your five-year life plan and check in with each other once a week. Try using a habit tracker or goal-setting app to help you stay consistent.
When you reach a milestone, celebrate your success. You can share your victories with your support system or treat yourself to a new book or pair of shoes. When you positively reinforce good behavior, you’re more likely to continue doing it.
Related: How to Create a Vision Board That Transforms Your Life
6. Adapt and Revise Your Plan
Your five-year life plan is not set in stone. In fact, your plan will change many times over the next five years. Life is all about change. You’ll change careers, cities, and relationship statuses. You’ll learn more about yourself and what you want out of life. If your life plan is an accurate reflection of you, it will grow with you.
Instead of stressing when things don’t go according to plan, learn to embrace change. Life planners recommend you review your progress every six months to a year. That way, you can make adjustments to your timeline or goals as you see fit. Remember: revising your life plan doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re becoming more in tune with what you want.
Consider journaling about the “why” every time you make a change to your life plan. Write about what you learned and how you can implement that knowledge going forward.
7. Overcome Obstacles and Challenges
As you start checking items off your life plan, you will inevitably face obstacles and challenges. You’re going to face times where you don’t have the time or money to follow through on your plan. You may begin to doubt yourself. What’s most important is that you learn how to overcome challenges. Think of obstacles as opportunities to learn and grow.
You can overcome obstacles by breaking your goals down into smaller tasks. You may also want to practice positive thinking. Use visualization, mantras, and meditation to help you improve your mental strength.
Don’t be afraid to lean on others for support, either. Ask a mentor for guidance when you need it. You can also find a support group of people going through similar experiences.
8. Review and Reflect on Your Progress
As you go through life, make sure you take the time to reflect on your progress. You can use journaling as a tool to help you become more cognizant of your personal growth. Every time you review your life plan, ask yourself what went well, what didn’t go as planned, and what has changed in your life. Celebrate your victories.
Congratulate yourself every time you feel discouraged. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but by checking in with yourself regularly, you can ensure your five-year life plan is something you live by.
Conclusion
Your five-year life plan doesn’t have to be a perfect prediction of what your life will look like. Rather, it should guide you toward living with purpose. Take the time to understand your current situation. Set goals you will actually look forward to working toward. Create a vision of your future to keep you motivated during tough times. Develop an action plan you can actually follow. Don’t forget to hold yourself accountable and revisit your life plan every once in a while.
A strong five-year life plan allows you to live your life instead of reacting to it. You’ll constantly be thinking about where you want to go in life and what you can do to live better today.
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