The Five Year Plan

The best advice I have ever been given, in work and in life, is to say screw your five year plan, what's your five day plan?  How are you maximizing the seconds in your everyday to get yourself to your future goals?  Who cares about your five year plan if you spend your next five days watching Netflix?  What are you doing to make the most of your time now?

I used to live by the five year plan.  My whole life has a plan.  I think I came out of the womb planning every second of my life.  When asked about my five year plan in an interview, I have always had a detailed and kick ass response.  The truth is - I'm not doing any of the things I planned all these years.  

My last five years have been a series of four states, about as many jobs, a handful of relationships, breakups, makeups, friendships that fell apart, and friendships that became family.  I never lost those extra pounds, I don't own a house - and not one person has let me become Emperor of Sparkle.

The more I plan, the more my plans fall apart.  Adjusting my view to focus on short term has been quite the challenge.  But the more I engage in the next five minutes, the more joy I feel and the more successful I find myself (personally and professionally) in the next five years.

How many times have you put your goals on hold because you figure they're long term, there's time?  How many hours have you spent procrastinating because it didn't need to get done today?  But if you've got a goal to accomplish in five minutes - or five days - you don't have time to wait - you've got to make it happen NOW.

Let's chat examples.  My biggest career goal in life is to be happy.  To love what I do, love where I do it, and get paid enough to travel the world.  I'm not willing to wait five years for that to happen.  So I make time every single day to evaluate where I'm at in my career.  I look at what I'm doing everyday, who I'm working with, and where my finances are - and if in five days I cant find happy most of the time - I start working towards changing that.  I'm not waiting a year, or five years to say be patient, the happy will come.  I am talking to my colleagues, bosses, mentors, and I'm saying I love this, I don't love this - help me figure out where I can adjust, where you can adjust - so that I'm happy.

In my personal life, I struggle with health and wellness.  I get sick often, beat my body up, and I sleep significantly less than a human being should.  I don't have five years to spare living like this.  And I can't wait five years to feel my healthiest and happiest.  So everyday, I prioritize fitness.  I prioritize self care.  I go so far as to make time each hour of the day to do something that simply gives me some personal joy.  Some days that means taking a 20 minute Starbucks break at 3PM.  Most days it means leaving work by 4PM to make 430 Pilates.  Once in awhile it means spending 10 minutes shopping the Nordstrom semiannual sale online.  Every single time, it adds value and happiness to my world.  I'm a significantly better human when I take five minutes to put me first instead of waiting even five days to make me a priority.

Nobody said you should be working every second of every day, but if you're not making the moments count now - how do you ever plan to achieve the big moments down the road?

Setback: A Reversal in Progress

I've got to be honest.  I've suffered a setback.  I've slipped back a bit to my old ways of working too much and allowing my stress to climb too high.

For me, the biggest weakness I have is to allow work to consume too much of my time and my mind.  I don't shut off the business and cause myself unnecessary stress.  Most of this is of my own doing.  I truly believe we all have a choice when it comes to work life balance.  

If you do not like where you're at, you either need to change your attitude or change your situation. 

I live by this motto and you should too.  We spend far too much time complaining and far too little time actively directing our own play.  And spare me the excuse that you're stuck for X, Y, or Z reason.  You're  stuck if you let yourself be stuck.  You move forward if you choose to take steps forward.

I've allowed myself to be consumed by my job because well, old habits die hard.  I've taken the stresses home and dwelled too long on the pieces I don't enjoy.  I can feel it in my lack of sleep, difficulty focusing, and my pulling away from the people around me.  I'm irritable, exhausted, and easily frustrated.  

It's not a fun realization when I see myself slipping back into my old way of living.  

Thankfully, I've caught myself on the downward slide and I'm confronting the issues head on.  I'm deciding to put a stop to it and turn myself right back around in a positive direction.

I know what you're thinking - am I going to change my attitude or change my situation?  Right now, in order to remain sane, I'm changing my attitude.  I'm stopping myself when I talk too much about the negative and I'm redirecting my energies to positive situations.  If at the end of the day I'm unable to exist in my situation after changing my attitude, then I'll change my situation.

Setbacks are inevitable.  Learning to change conditioned behavior is one of the hardest struggles out there.  And it only gets worse as we get older.  Take comfort in being able to recognize when you're faced with a setback.  Cut yourself a break as you reengage your focus and shift your energies to the right path.  A setback can easily be turned into one hell of a comeback if you're brave enough to try.  

New Normal

Since I know you've been religiously reading my blog, you're caught up on my new normal of setting boundaries in the workplace and balancing a personal life.  I'm proud to say that for the past few weeks I've actually been able to do it, and it's weird.  

As a working adult I've only ever experienced the overworked endless to do list life. I've never gone through the work day at ease or with time to actively focus on one task.  It's been constant putting out of fires and leaving at the end of the day completely drained.

But for the past few weeks I've left work feeling accomplished.  I have had a reasonable workload.  I haven't been on an airplane.  I haven't been surviving on a few hours of sleep.  I've even left my desk for lunch.  

And in true form - this gives me anxiety.

Because I only know the life of an overachiever, a save the day hero, a never say no champion - I feel like an absolute waste of space existing in normal job land.  I'm paranoid I've become like everyone else, good at my job but not the star.  I'm worried I'm seen as a slacker.  That I'm not doing enough.

Keep in mind I put in my 8+ hours each day so I'm by no means coasting through anything.  I'm actually more productive because I have the time to perfect the details, to look at how we can grow accounts, and to evaluate past events.  

But I can't help but wonder - is this normal?  Is this what it's like to be a normal employee somewhere?  You do your job, you go home and you live your life and there's this sense of calm and that's just ok?  What do I do with my hands?  Where's the fire drill?

I recently started therapy (I know, I'm so evolved look at me!) and my therapist is working on getting me to understand what it's like to shift my commitment to work to myself.  To learn to continue to be really good at what I do but to also take that same dedication to building up my personal life.  To understanding that I don't have to be it all to be valued in my company.  

Right now - I'm not very good at it if we are being really honest.  But I'm starting to get addicted to being invested in myself.  To leaving work at work, to saying no to taking it all on.  There's still that little voice that taps me on the shoulder and says you're not enough, you're missing out on opportunities when you set boundaries - but then there's this sparkly bitch on my other shoulder who has a fire inside of her.  She likes Pilates and dinners with friends.  She enjoys going on dates.  She lives for quiet time to write at home.  She's super passionate about her Thursday night TV shows.  

The more that sparkly angel speaks up and the more I feed her energy, the quieter my anxiety monster gets.  And while I very well could miss out on something in my career, the balance is worth it.  Feeling whole again is worth it.  It's so damn cliché and yet something I have wholeheartedly yearned to embody: On your deathbed, do you want to remember all the times you stayed late for work or do you want to remember all the passions you felt and the people you made memories with?