Have you ever had the opportunity to be asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Do you have a ready answer? Good for you! Thinking about such a distant future is completely foreign to me!
I have no idea where I will be and what I will do in five years because everything is possible. I absolutely can’t decide to follow only one path and dream only one dream, because there are so many tempting options. How can I, in my imagination, accept the idea that in five years at this time I will be lying on a tropical beach, when I may be in complete euphoria because I have just started my own business and want to spend every available moment doing the job I love? Or maybe at that very moment, I will be at the first exhibition of my daughter’s paintings and my heart will be bigger than the square footage of all the tropical islands together?
I like to keep the options open, I like to think positively and let life choose for me.
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Planning more than a week in advance is not typical for me at all. I am aware that it is also a blessing – because I am extremely flexible and adaptable, but also a curse because even if I plan something, there is a great possibility that I will not adhere to it. Sometimes because of that, I have the impression that the path I have chosen does not lead anywhere, but is constantly spinning in a circle (imagine a picture of a dog running after its own tail).
However, on the other hand, I am aware that if I had to adhere to a strict plan, I would feel that it was suffocating and holding me back.
But when there is no plan, there are no results, says the rationalist in me.
So how do you find the middle ground between two extremes: passive surrender over the course of a lifetime and effortless planning?
PLANNING VS LEAKING
There are pros and cons for each of the approaches. If we indulge, then we allow ourselves to be guided by our own values and intuition, but at the same time, we can get lazy or, simply, miss the opportunities that are offered to us. On the other hand, when we plan, we set ourselves guidelines that make it easier for us to find our way, but what if things don’t go according to plan? We will be disappointed and frustrated, we may even lose faith in our own abilities.
HOW TO FIND A BALANCE?
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BEHAVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR OWN PERSON
Let’s go back to the question from the beginning of the post: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” If the answer to that question seems exciting to you if you have a clear idea and a plan for realization, you are definitely the type of person to whom planning in advance suits. In that case, paper and pen in hand and write down your plans for 2018! Have you done that already ?! Well, of course, it is, where did I get the idea that you were waiting for me to suggest it to you ?!
But if the answer to the above question makes you anxious, just like me, don’t bother with detailed planning so far in advance. Who says that if we simply follow what makes us happy at a given moment, life will not take us to exactly the place that belongs to us? However, even if we indulge in the course of life (let me call it that), it is not worse to set guidelines. It is enough to write only theses. What is it that I want to achieve by the end of 2018? To renovate an apartment. I organize myself better and make more time for socializing in my schedule. Once a week, I set aside an appointment to prepare homemade meals for the family a few days in advance. I am organizing a family trip until the end of March. I stop using plastic bags. I start making my own cosmetics more often. I take my mom out for coffee at least once a week somewhere… Don’t go into details, but still write down your plans so you don’t forget them, ie. lest they be suppressed by some other plans. Record your thesis on a desktop computer. You don’t have to open them, but from time to time, when you see a document, it will remind you of ideas that are important to you, and maybe put you back on the road to realizing them.
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REVIEW YOUR PLANS ONCE AGAIN
This applies to people who are prone to planning. Do you really need all those plans? Do they, instead of making you feel better, actually make you anxious? Are they perhaps just an excuse for procrastination, procrastination? You plan everything nicely, but when you need to take action, do you fail? Be realistic, you don’t need 10 plans, two or three for 2018 will be enough, but one that you will realize.
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BE READY TO ADJUST AND CHANGE THE PLAN
Life often prepares for unpredictable obstacles. Stubbornness rarely pays off, it is much smarter to be flexible and in case plan A fails, simply embrace plan B. Sometimes, we have to face the fact that we cannot control everything and that the ideal scenario does not always play out in life.
Which of these two personality types do you recognize? Do you like to plan or indulge in the flow of life?
Continued: Plan for the future
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