BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Life Coaching What are your Five Year Goals?

Okay, I decided I would take another stab at this:

In five years i'd like to see my house on solar for heat, water, electronics and many appliances. I'd like to see a full array of fruit and nut trees, edible bushes, edible perennials and a thriving garden plot on well-built soil. I will have an outdoor shower area or bathhouse. I will have a composting toilet established.

I'd like to have actual gutters directing water to my rain barrels instead of all this laborious hand carrying of small jugs sitting under the eaves. My greywater system will be made with useful intent, instead of simply draining into the bamboo as it does now.

I will have a two-story shed in the backyard with a view deck.

My house will be fixed enough to retain heat and I will have a wood burning stove set up in it.

Those are things that make me happy to think about.

My 5 year goals are -
1. Being a senior feature writer
2. Buying a house

I think that is enough and all that I need in my life.

Well my long term goals are which I foresee to achieve in the coming 5 years is to become an expert in cooking:):) Besides this I would like to have achieved my MBA degree or a Bachelors degree in Education.

Jilly -

Those are great goals! Can you make them in a list to hang somewhere and inspire you? I have my list with my priorities, 5-year, and 1-year hanging right by my desk.

Jodie -

Those are great goals! I'd phrase #2 in the present tense, like "Owning a house I love" so it feels more immediate

Once you have those, it's time to work on the one year goals to focus your attention in!

I'm thrilled to say I'm about to hit one of my five year goals - I'm going to have 3 of my romance novels published by the end of THIS year! Hurrah!!

So my 5 year goal list now is -

BellaOnline < 30 empty sites
House organized
Native American wedding book complete
earn my bachelor's degree
earn $3000 from romance novel sales
do shoulder press yoga pose
body fat at 18%
play moonlight sonata on piano
play dueling banjos on guitar
have zero messages in backlog

There, that's specific and should be attainable in 5 years!

Reminder - once your five year goals are set - time to focus in on the One Year Goals

It's funny how some of my goals seem achievable and others seem quite challenging. It wasn't that long ago that getting a degree was a distant dream - and now I'm almost in my senior year! It really does show that taking those tiny steps, one at a time, get you to where you want to be.

The house, though, goes instantly from clean to completely chaotic. It can be frustrating. I have to focus on small steps. The same with my email backlog.

Here we are in 2012! The perfect time to revisit those long term goals. Remember, these aren't really about "reaching" the goals. They are about giving you direction so when you work on daily tasks you know if they are in service of a healthy goal or one that doesn't fall within your priorities.

So when I say "have zero email messages in backlog" - maybe that will never happen. But it serves as a point of light to aim at, so I know when I work on my email backlog that it is a healthy thing for me to do with my time.

That makes it sound unattainable and therefore stressful, to me. I never want to set my bar so high that I will never get there, or have to put forth a Herculean effort to reach.