Planning for the future

Today’s headline review yielded an article from lifehacker.com entitled “Why You Should Revisit Your Five Year Plan.” For many of us it could also have been called or what is a five-year plan or why bother..

When I arrived in Logan many years ago, I was all about planning, goal setting, and trying to control what I thought I wanted. I wrote a business plan and had a 13-year run with my window covering and design business. Unlike all the places I had worked before arriving in Utah, I was able to develop, track and monitor where all my customers came from. I felt like I was in charge of things.

Then, I closed up shop and returned to school. School is the perfect situation for goal-setting because it imposes all sorts of artificial deadlines on students. Register by this date, drop by this date, turn this paper in, select and choose deadlines for graduation…. This seemed like a big enough goal, and I made it out right on schedule. Still in control of my destiny.

Since then I have floundered. Life since coming to Utah seems to fall into nicely divided segments of pre-kids, little kids, school kids, away kids, and retirement.  Within the next ten years I could potentially hit the segment known as empty nest. This causes me a bit of concern. I’m not sure that I’ve done whatever I was supposed to do before retirement, but I no longer know what needs doing.

Financially, I’m good. I know how to plan and budget for the things I value in my life and how to protect those assets reasonably well until they are ready to be used.  I can see retirement twenty years out and know the lifestyle that I want to have in that situation. I am making adjustments now that should make this possible. And yet, this doesn’t’ feel like a five year plan.

Lifehacker is directed at a much younger audience, and did have some questions to use as guidelines which I thought might be useful when thinking about life as a whole:

• What do you want it to look like? Think in broad lifetime ideals, such as having wealth, adventure, and peace and experiences you don't want to miss in your lifetime, such as owning your own business or having a family.
• How can you live these goals in the next five years? Some examples could be: start a business, travel to three different countries, or decrease stress.
• What do you wish were different about your life now?

• What do you want to be different in five years?

• What goals/milestones do you want to reach?

• What experiences do you want to have?

These questions seem to focus on creating a life without regret. What if that is pretty much the life I already have? Are goals hugely important if you enjoy floating through your life? Also, what about the many things you can’t control, like death and illness. By giving your life the appearance of control, have you added a stress to your life? Also, what about other loved ones, they have goals too and that might take you in different directions than you had planned. 

I think a more valuable first step might be to make a pie. Identify what you value in life and place it above all else. This might a combination of  family time, non-traditional work schedule, money, vacations, or other elements. Once these items are ranked and ordered, this makes your life into a pie. With a life pie in place, I can compare the decisions I make for work and play with what I value most and create the most fulfilling life for me. Isn’t that really what goals are all about anyhow.