“The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.” — Eckhart Tolle
Gary Keller, Author of The One Thing, has a philosophy that “You are only ever five years away from where you want to be.”
No matter where you are right now, you could be exactly where you want to be in five years or less. You could go from broke, to a millionaire.
You could do and change anything!
Knowing that you could accomplish anything you wanted in the next five years, what would your future look like? Because those five years will surely arrive. The only variable is where you’ll be.
If You Don’t Plan it, You Won’t Achieve it
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” -Jim Rohn
A phrase we often hear is, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” And this is entirely true.
If you don’t plan your next five years, you can already see them — just look at your last five.
Is that a scary or positive thought? Either way, by creating a plan you can start to put in motion the changes you wish to see in them.
Benjamin P. Hardy has once said,
“You have complete power over the details of your life the moment you decide you’re worthy of that power.”
You decide to become worthy of that power by making definitive plans and decisions about your direction and how you want your future to play out.
How do you want your Personal Life and Physical Health to be in five years? What position do you want your Work and Finances to be in? What sort of Relationships do you want to have in five years?
Here’s my very simple five-year plan structure to help you,
1. Personal Life/Physical Health: 5 years from now:
- Where do I want to live?
- Where do I want to travel?
- How do I want to feel about myself?
- What do I want my physique to look like?
- How do I want to spend the majority of my time?
2. Work and Finances: 5 years from now:
- What job do I want to be working?
- Who do I want to be working for?
- What level of income do I want to be earning?
- How many streams of income do I want to have?
3. Relationships: 5 years from now:
- What kind of friends do I want to have?
- What kind of relationship do I want to have with my significant other?
- How big do I want my family to be? (children, pets etc…)
“People these days are measured by the size of their dreams. No one accomplishes more than he sets out to accomplish. So visualize a big future.” -David Schwartz
Achieving Your Plans and Becoming Your Dream Self is Not a Mystery
“Achieving top-tier dreams and becoming a higher self is not a mystery” -Anthony Moore
Now, planning a big future could be incredibly daunting. But it doesn’t have to be.
Here are some basic success principals that make achieving your plans and becoming your dream self no mystery:
Subtract, Don’t Add
When laying out the future you want, you may realize that you’re not on track to achieving many of the things you’d like.
You might say, “To get what I want I must do so much more.”
But in fact, doing more won’t be as effective as doing less.
If you want to lose weight, adding more exercise to your weekly plan won’t help if your diet is still full of junk food.
Adding an additional stream of income won’t improve your finances if you don’t set up a budget and cut out your excessive spending habits.
Remove negative behaviors before starting positive ones.
Start today
The key is to start today by subtracting even the smallest thing that will take you in direction of where you want to be.
A once heard a wise man say,
“I’ve never known someone who did 10 burpees everyday for 6 months and was still fat.”
Simply because any amount of progress creates ripple effects — As you improve, the more you want to improve and soon your whole life will be completely different.
Track, Analyse and Reflect
You can’t know if you’re making progress if you’re not tracking it.
Keep a note of what you’re doing to make progress towards your goals and take a few hours each week to reflect on what’s working and correct anything that’s not.
You simply can not continually push forward without taking time to track, analyse, pause and reflect upon your direction.
In Conclusion
“Goals are as essential to success as air is to life. No one ever stumbles into success without a goal. No one ever lives without air. Get a clear fix on where you want to go.” -David Schwartz
The future is what you make of it. Make sure you know where you’re going by planning a big future for yourself.
Remove toxic behaviors before setting positives ones or you’ll always end up taking one step forward followed by one step backward.
Start today. Create even the tiniest bit of forward momentum that will be a catalyst to see your whole life change.
Track, analyse and reflect to make sure you’re on the right course and in five years you’ll barely recognize yourself.