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?

Side Hustle

These days, everybody has a side hustle.  Between Beach Body, Rodan and Fields, Lula Roe, the endless boutiques, consultants for everything you can think of - it's impossible to avoid seeing the impact of the side hustle in todays world.  

The goal of the side hustle is to make it your main hustle.  It's what you do to get yourself ahead build your income, and to eventually allow yourself to be your own boss.  

As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a writer.  It took me a really long time to realize how much of a role writing has played in my life, but now that I know it's my passion, it's all I can think about.  This blog, and now the work I do consulting, guest blogging, and ghost writing - these things are my side hustle so that one day I can confidently say that I am a writer, and my own boss.

I think a lot of people out there have passions that aren't in line with what they're currently doing in their career.  They want to make a change but starting can be overwhelming.  They vow to do something and might start the journey, but excuses come up and the dream is put on hold.  I've been there.  I did that for years.  I talked and talked about how I wanted to start a blog, write a book - and I started those things, and then I stopped.  But having been consistent for a year and a half of this website has instilled in me a fire to never stop.  And if I can do it, you can too.

Create Clarity

Figure out what your goals are and write them down.  Be concise, be specific, and be extremely detailed.  Post these goals somewhere you will see them every single day.  Keep a notebook with you at all times where these goals are also written down and where you can jot down your ideas and tasks towards developing the goals.  The point is to have no confusion or room for uncertainty - if you write these goals down - they're real and they're in front of you every single day.  It's a lot harder to walk away from a dream when you're constantly faced with the realization that its just a dream.

Stop Making Excuses

I work a lot.  I travel a lot.  I'm a social person.  I like to workout.  I have a dog.  I'm tired.  I am the queen of excuses.  I'll give you excuses you've never even heard before and the little dream crusher inside of me she backs up these excuses.  In order to make anything happen - you've got to give up those excuses.  And you've got to hold yourself accountable.  Your excuses are BS, and you've got to remind yourself if it's important to you, you'll make it happen.  Sacrifices will have to be made.  You will give up time where you would rather be with friends, family, partying, sleeping, whatever - but you have to carve out time to work on your dreams or they're again, just dreams.

Have a Plan

People who don't have concrete plans make me insane.  I plan for a living and I understand the detail and precision that must go into plans in order to achieve goals.  I want to be a writer but simply having a plan to write isn't a plan that's going to succeed.  I need a strategy for content, a brand, and a means of pushing my brand out to the world.  And I've got to double check each of these steps with ROI so that I know what works and what doesn't.  I don't want to be another one of those bloggers who thinks success comes from just writing when I can, putting content out when I have it and hoping my cute face will get me followers.  Without a plan, the dream is still - just. a. dream.

Accountability

Speak your plans into the world.  Tell your squad about your goals and plans.  There's something real about putting your dreams into the world where others know about them.  You're kind of a loser if you're the friend who talks about doing all the time and never follows through.  I don't like being around those people, I don't trust those people to follow through for me if they can't even follow through for themselves.  Hold yourself accountable by being open about the dream, the plan, and the steps you're  taking to make the dream more than just a dream.

Dreams are so freaking cool.  People with big dream and passions are my favorite people to surround myself with.  And seeing people achieve their dreams after all the hard work they put in to make it happen - that's magic.  Respect the magic of a side hustle and if you do it right, your dreams will be anything but just dreams - they'll become your reality.

The Perfect Job

As young, naive, fresh to the working world Ashley entered adulthood and the future of her career, she dreamed of the perfect job.  Determined, armed with a multitude of skills - she vowed never to settle when it came to the dream career.  And that same grit, passion, and stubborn refusal to accept anything less than the best exists within my soul today.  But there's one big difference - current Ashley understands that while the perfect job does not exist, the dream still does.

I hate to break hearts here - but there is truly no job that you will be happy in 100% of the time.  You will not end each day thinking- WOW I really loved every single thing that happened today.  Not all tasks will be enjoyable.  But that does not mean you are not in your perfect job.

Understanding that the dream job can be the dream job with bad days is the most important tool you can ever have as you go on your journey as a business person.  

For the first four jobs I had in the real world - I lacked understanding for this fact.  Certainly there were deal breakers that were not normal parts of any job.  But there were also may times I could have taken a step back and gained perspective in my situation.  And by doing so, I could have avoided a lot of drama, unhappiness, and just taken these pieces of my journey as learning experiences for my future.  

If I could give any new to the working world human one single piece of advice, it would be to have perspective.  

Know your deal breakers, make sure they're reasonable and by all means never compromise those deal breakers.  Without principle, without knowing your value - you have nothing.

But also realize that anything that does not fit in your box of deal breakers belongs in your box of "this isn't fun but life isn't always fun."  That's where you store the crappy things nobody enjoys doing but that are vital to the growth of who you are in your career.  Those are the critical must get done for this company to function pieces that you don't want to do but that don't take away from the amazing job you have.  

There is just no perfect job.  But there is a perfect job for you.  Just like relationships, not every moment is glitter and rainbows, but at the end of the day, it's your person regardless.  Think of your job this way.  Sometimes your boss sucks.  Sometimes you have to spend hours on spreadsheets that are the worst.  some days your coworkers are the least helpful people in the world.  But when you think about leaving your job or your company, you can't bear to consider it.  THAT is your perfect job.

Focus less on perfect and more on your level of happiness.  Do you feel inspired?  Challenged?  Do the people around you feel like your teammates? Do you feel happy most days?  If you can confidently say that the majority of your days you love your job, that is the perfect job for you right now.  If you cannot claim to feel joy most of the time, either change your perspective or change your job.  

To add another layer of depth - understand that the perfect job for you can change throughout your life.  What works for you at 22, can change at 26.  The hunt for the dream is not limited to a timeline.  There isn't a rule book to follow.  As you grow, mature, and your skills and your lifestyle change - so may your career path.  That's OK.

As someone who has had the most nontraditional career journey, who has broken every rule - I know that at the end of the day I have to lie with the results.  Why would I ever allow anyone else to dictate what my path to get there looks like?

Birthday Babe

TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!  EVERYBODY PANIC!  BUY ALL THE GIFTS!  THROW ALL THE GLITTER!

Tomorrow I'll be 31 years old!  What a journey these past 31 years have been!  Getting older is absolutely terrifying and amazing at the same time.  I spent a really long time unsure of who I was, constantly trying to be whatever perfect is, and I am so thankful that today I am finally loving the woman I have become. 

You could say I'm a late bloomer in that I took longer to choose a career path (I'm still holding out for Disney Princess), I spent years dating the wrong men (the last guy is the one who finally kicked the habit for me), and I hated my body instead of celebrating all the insane things its done for me (thank you track booty).  But here I am.  31 and I feel like my dreams are just starting to come true.