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?

Rollercoaster of Life

Life is like a roller coaster.  It's a series of ups and downs, highs and lows, twists and turns - you are never always on top and you are never stuck at the bottom.  

There is a lot of pressure in society to constantly be on.  To define success by always being in a great place.  But in reality - life is in constant transition.  You cannot possibly always have it all and to pretend you do is a really sad, exhausting lie.

In my past - I have fallen victim to the  pressure to prove myself.  To show those around me that I am in fact successful because I'm always onto the next step.  Truthfully, I've had some incredible success, failures, and unfortunate lessons that weren't really a success or a failure.  I've been laid off, accepted my dream job, been unemployed for 6 months, made a Division One track program, been consistently injured, felt incredible about myself, and been at the absolute bottom of the bottom.  

The point is - stop trying to be anything to anyone but yourself.  Stop pressuring yourself to prove you're a success to the masses and start focusing on how you define success for yourself.  

I used to define success by money and career status.  The more I've grown and asked myself why I felt that way - the more I've learned that my success is surviving my struggles, finding joy, and creating relationships that make me feel good.  

Do I want to have a successful career with financial stability?  Absolutely.  But I want a career that gives me passion, happiness - and fills my bank account so that I can travel and spend time with my humans.  I don't care if I'm the CEO of the Universe - that might impress Facebook, but if I'm unhappy, that's a failure.

Equally - a year ago I was laid off from a job I hated.  I made the decision to move home because I didn't want to build a life in LA anymore and financially - I needed to be smarter.  I was 31 and living at home.  It took me 6 months to find a job I was willing to accept and build a future on.  During that time - I was told by people very close to me that I was failing.  That I had done so much only to fall so far.  At first - I was mortified and started to believe what I was being told.  But something happened - I also got really protective of myself.  I did not consider myself failing.  Was it easy?  Was it where I wanted to be?  Absolutely not.  But I did not fail.  I was not at my lowest low.  I needed that time to regroup, make sure I was setting myself up for success financially, and to not rush into another bad situation.  I am not embarrassed by that time in my life.  It was part of my rollercoaster.  

In relationships, in careers, in health and in happiness - life will not be a constant peak.  You will fall and tumble and fall again.  You will rise and stay so high and then plateau and peak again.  Every single person in the world lives by this pattern.  You are not unique in having the roller coaster experience.  Take comfort in the fact that we all go through things that none of us see.  And remember in that vain - because you can't see everyone's highs and lows - we are all fighting battles and celebrating successes you know nothing about.  

You don't owe your story to anyone.  You don't have to show the world anything but what you choose to share.  The more you find the confidence to do what lights your world on fire - the less you need validation from society around you.

You are the one who has to live with each choice you make.  The people you're trying so hard to show your amazing life to - they don't matter.  They aren't part of your story, they're spectators to the world you present to them.  What do you want your life to look like, feel like, and say to your soul?

Time is a Choice

We all have the same 24 hours in a day.  Not one single human being gets 25 hours or 14 hours.  We all get 24 hours and that's it.  No more, no less.  How you choose to spend that time is up to you. 

Seriously.  Stop making excuses or saying you have to do something.  Whether it be work, appointments, who you spend your time with, that's a choice.  You can always choose to make a change.  You can always choose who you give your moments to.

I get it.  Some things you legit have to do (thanks smart ass).  You have to go to the doctor.  Get your car fixed.  But realistically 98% of the things you do, they're a choice.

We are all important.  But I think a lot of us get trapped into warped levels of importance.  I've always had jobs that have long hours.  And I've missed a lot of life events, put my health at risk, allowed personal relationships to be put on the back burner.  And for a really long time, I used that as an excuse.   Ultimately, missing these things, missing time with people - those were choices I made.

Of course there are times when work does prevent you from being somewhere.  And sometimes you're tired - but if you find yourself saying no or I can't to things really often - you're making a conscious choice to prioritize certain things and put others on the back burner.  And that's ok.

It's ok as long as you own what you're doing as a choice.  Your priorities are your own to make.  But making excuses, claiming you have to do something, that's not owning up to the reality of being a grown up. 

Being a grown up means realizing that time is a choice, a really precious choice, and how you choose to spend your time is incredibly personal.  But pretending that your time is anymore important, any less of a choice - thank anyone else - well its BS and its insulting to the people around you.

Time is limited.  How you choose to spend your limited time is something you should think critically about.  Get strategic and focused. Dedicate the most time to you and those closest to you.  Choosing where and how you spend your time is choosing joy.  And choosing to accept that there's no excuses for your unhappiness, no excuses for never seeing someone, and no excuses for not getting things done. 

You have the same 24 hours a day that everyone else has.  You don't care about their excuses so why are you listening to yours?