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How I approach creating a personal five-year plan

Updated: Jan 7

Developing a five-year plan for yourself can be intimidating and a bit overwhelming. The task itself can feel thought- and time-intensive. It can also be a bit daunting to face questions about your life and aspirations staring back at you from a piece of paper (or screen). This is all normal, and I hope what I am writing here helps alleviate some of this anxiety and replaces it with some extra motivation and inspiration.


Here are the Plan for Growth™ 5 Year Plan templates I created, and I encourage you to read this blog before diving in.


Printable workbook:

Student version of printable workbook:


If you're here about the Plan for Growth™ Daily Planner, continue reading or skip to that section by clicking here.


First, why create a five-year plan for yourself?

Life happens and the best laid plans can be overtaken by events. For me, having an overarching vision to guide my decisions and process opportunities and challenges is key to navigating my trajectory and staying on a path in line with my values and what I want out of life. The five-year plan is one tool that I use to develop, refine, and stay true to my vision.


But the most important aspect of the five-year plan is the process behind it - the time and thought you invest in reflecting, analyzing, envisioning, and planning for the next five years, with your whole experience and imagination used as the magic ingredients. And the magic of this process extends and multiplies as you go through it - day by day, week by week, month by month, and then year over year of growth and progress. You'll be amazed to see what can happen when you visualize your goals and open your eyes to signposts for success and progress (and sometimes these can manifest in unexpected ways).


With your five-year plan in tow, your vision starts to sharpen toward opportunities and efforts that are worth your time and energy, and can help you identify areas of your life where you need to scale back or take a step back altogether. From hard decisions to re-evaluating habits and what has become routine, having this vision can bring confidence and clarity to the forefront to help you make decisions and stay true to yourself.


This is why early on in the the five-year plan process there is a key step for formulating and articulating your why.


Second, what is a five-year plan?

Let's start with what it's not:

  • Set in stone and unchangeable;

  • Rigid and inflexible;

  • Myopic and absent of considerations;

  • Vague;

  • Impractical and unrealistic;

  • Someone else's expectations of you;

  • A tool for procrastination without action; or,

  • Mandatory for all five years.


Your five-year plan is your unique roadmap for the next five-year chapter of your life.

  • Can it change? Yes.

  • Does it need to last all five years? No. I have rewritten my plan three months in and three years in for a multitude of reasons.

  • What if I don't have the capacity right now for defined goals? Sometimes goals can be expressions of what you want for yourself for the next five years, such as being more consistent with healthy habits, holding on to a job, getting through school, or protecting your time and space to care for yourself or a loved one. These are all goals, and they can also be viewed as themes for your five-year plan (e.g., consistency, stability, foundational development, taking care of what matters most, etc.).


Third, is there an app for this?

I'm sure there is something out there, but what I have created is deliberately meant to be analog - on paper, uninterrupted by notifications, and away from influence, comparisons, and noise on social media.


Once you have your five-year plan developed, there are a number of ways you can digitize aspects of it to make it part of your routine. I touch on this further down.


Where to start?

First, print out one of the free guides I designed and uploaded above, or purchase my Plan for Growth™ Daily Planner on Amazon, which has the 5 Year Plan workbook integrated in a daily planner.


Once you have one of these tools in your hands, skim through it and start thinking about what you want out of the next five years. Don't rush to fill this out right away. Think for a bit, maybe set up some time to chat with a mentor or confidante, and plan a time to start filling this out at your own pace. Once you start working through the workbook and seeing how you will design your goals and plans, set a deadline for yourself to complete your five-year plan and kick it off (try not to let it linger in a development phase for too long). It does not have to be perfect and can change as often or infrequently as needed. The most important thing is that you are using this tool to ask yourself questions about your vision, goals, and progress, and that you are checking in on your five-year plan regularly and noting what is on track, where you may need to shift, and how you are detecting signposts of success and progress (plot twist: sometimes you are achieving your goal in a way that is not how you initially defined what that achievement would look like, and that is sometimes the most exciting part of this journey).


How to make it part of your routine

There is much to be said about what can happen when you take a pause, reflect, and visualize what you want out of life - sometimes that exercise alone can prompt a series of events and habits that are transformative. So, if you put your five-year plan together and then file it away, there are still many benefits from having it articulated - it is not as "out of sight, out of mind" as you may assume. If you happen to do this, I challenge you to set a reminder one year out to pull out your five-year plan and review it. You'll be amazed at how much it will resonate with you, and you may be inspired to seek it out more regularly for review and reflection.


If you want to routinely consult your plan, you can:

  • Set monthly/quarterly/yearly calendar reminders to review your plan;

  • Use spreadsheets or apps for specific goals (e.g., for budgeting, investment, or other financial goals, fitness apps, etc.) and translate progress into your plan;

  • Schedule check-ins with a mentor or confidante (or even have a family member, partner, friend, or coworker fill out a five-year plan as well to work through this framework together); and,

  • Set up a time once each year to deep dive into your plan and potentially refresh or rewrite it - I tend to do this at the end of December/early January to kick off each calendar year.


I designed the Plan for Growth™ Daily Planner to layer the five-year plan concept into a typical daily planner for more seamless tracking and integration.


The Plan for Growth™ Daily Planner


I first started designing this planner in 2020, and the final version was published for purchase on Amazon in 2022 after several iterations of testing.


The front cover is a photo I took while in New Orleans. For me, it represents a doorway for growth and adventure, and a reminder of resilience. Please join me in donating to the New Orleans New Year's Day Tragedy Fund, a cause supporting the victims and survivors of the attack on Bourbon Street. New Orleans is so special to me and I often visit or think about relocating altogether to Marigny. Please support this community as it shows--time and again--its strength, power, love, and resilience.




The Plan for Growth™ Daily Planner is a 12-month, spiral bound daily planner that has the five-year plan concept integrated throughout, and several additional tools (e.g., decision matrix) and notes pages at the end. It has designs for monthly, weekly, and daily planning and tracking, but it is intentionally blank in terms of months and dates.


This makes the planner feel like a bullet journal without worrying about the large time investment for initial setup - you can customize and create the planner to align with your schedule. For instance, you do not have to start it in January, and you do not need to have all months represented. You may want to fill in yours around an academic calendar or fiscal year, and perhaps skip months where you are on break, leave, or sabbatical.


Filling in the months and days does take some time, but I personally enjoy doing this after I have created or refreshed my five-year plan. I brew a fresh pot of coffee, throw on a favorite show or album for background, and plot out the year with pens, markers, and stickers. I then keep this planner with me at home and at work to keep it updated and help me with keeping track of the day-to-day without losing sight of my grand plans. Having it in a book means I can deliberately break away from devices and clear my head while updating and reviewing my planner and five-year plan.


Recommended add-ons while you're shopping on Amazon:

Please note that the following are affiliate links, and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.


Thank you for reading this blog, and please let me know if you're interested in hearing more about all things five-year planning and strategic planning!

 
 
 

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