Imagine the details of your life 5 years from now, What does your life look like? Where are you living? What are you doing? What kind of house are you in? What does your furniture look like? What is your room like? How many pets do you have? What kind of clothes do you wear? What is your Hairstyle and Colour? What excites you? How is your health? How are your relationships with your loved ones? Then, Describe a day in your life, 5 years from now, with as much courage as you can summon.
Tell me about your family, Do you have children? Do you have a car? Do you have a boat? Or maybe a private aeroplane? Talk about your career. What do you want? How much are you making?
So, One day in the spring of 2028, what does your day look like? write it all down.
Consider it like daydreaming with a much better resolution and on-the-reality floor way.
As Millman says, “Put your whole heart into it. And write like there is no tomorrow; write like your life depends on it because it does.” You read the plan once a month — and you let the magic do its thing.
Most likely you heard about vision boards before, that practice resembles it but with much better articulation in detail. With your pen and paper in hand, You can imagine your own details vividly and clearly, which gives you a better sense of how your dream life-slash-plan would be shaped.
When I read about this for the first time last year, I was so excited about it. As for a reading-type person who likes Twitter more than Instagram, I found that’s much better for me than the vision board thing. Vision board also works for some people of course, But as for an overwhelmed kind of person like me with 25 goals and 45 objectives all the time. Picking images from Pinterest that combine all that I want gives me enough choices to leave me more overwhelmed than I already was.
But writing all what I want down in articulation gives me a better sense of the whole image of where I wanna go and where I wanna be, it saves me the dilemma of choosing between pictures for just every goal, and let me create my own whole image that manifests all these goals combined in one full picture.
It gives me a sense of control over my goals and how they would all get to fall into the whole bigger picture I want for my life and the real priorities to focus upon for my dream life to come true.
Life happens and things go past and interrupt your routine and projects all the time, but every time, you return back to your plan and give it another read, it instantly redirects your brain as a kind of recalibration of the self. A compass north, guiding you slowly (sometimes imperceptibly) forward to what you should be doing next.
When rereading the 5-year plan, I’m resistant to claim that I see many things at the edge of “coming true.” I may find myself attaining a step in one part and totally changing my mind around another. I simply edit it to how I want things now. It’s totally normal and you must be fine with it, but you’ll mostly find the core of your dream plan still rings true, it’s the kind of magic you weave for yourself, out of determination, big leaps, and, yes, sometimes privilege and what do I like to call -strategic luck-.
And, At the end of this year, if I open the document and discover none of it rings true anymore? If I encounter my old plan and don’t see any of my current desires? Well, then, I’ll just write a new one. There is always more space to grow different types of flowers in the garden.
P.S. These are just my thoughts. I would love to hear yours. Leave a comment below and let’s talk.
