If you’ve ever been on a job interview and were asked, “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?,” you might have answered based on what you thought the interviewer wanted to hear or made something up on the fly, or simply found yourself unable to think or imagine that far down the road.
Whatever your response was (or wasn’t), the intention behind the question is what matters most.
The question itself gives you permission to step outside of your current environment or situation and decide for yourself where you want to be and how you want your life to look years from now.
As former Recruiter, I’ve asked this question thousands of times.
Some interviewees responded with a definitive plan, while most only had a general idea of the direction they wanted to take their lives…leaving themselves vulnerable and at the mercy of their manager or organization for guidance.
While this may be common among those who are employed by someone else, business owners and entrepreneurs must absolutely keep the answer to the question, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?” at the forefront of their minds, and have a plan in place to drive towards that vision.
Without knowing where you see yourself in the long term, it’s impossible to create a map to get there.
You need to know your destination so that every day, week, month, and year you can check your progress to be sure you’re still headed in the right direction.
So how do you create a plan to help you get from where you are to where you want to be?
With smaller goals and milestones to help track progress.
Once you know your ultimate destination, you can draft a plan for getting there, and create the interim goals that will help you stay on track.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of how to map out your goals and milestones
1. Creating Small Goals
Let’s say, for example, you want to increase your income from $50,000 to $120,000 in five years…while this is no small task, it is certainly doable.
Figuring out exactly how to increase your income by $70,000 can seem like an overwhelming task at first.
Some may look at this goal and immediately dismiss it as impossible.
But when you break it down as in the example below, and then again into smaller steps, the goal suddenly becomes less daunting and impossible to achieve.
- Year 1: $50,000
- Year 2: $65,000
- Year 3: $85,000
- Year 4: $105,000
- Year 5: $120,000
Let’s break this down even further.
In the first year of the outlined plan, your income needs to increase by $15,000. That’s about $1250 per month!
You can further break that down by week, to just $1250 per month, which is a little over $300 per week.
So, ask yourself, what can I package and sell to generate an additional $300 per week? Do you see yourself archiving that?
Related: 4 Reasons Why You Aren’t Seeing The Success You Want In Your Life
Could you sell a course or training program? Could you run an ad on social media or drive traffic to an affiliate program to reach your goal?
The point is, reaching this much smaller goal is far easier than thinking about that five-year plan.
Once you’ve reached your goal for year one, you’ll continue the process for the remaining years, and next thing you know, you will have accomplished (or even exceeded) a goal that once seemed impossible.
2. Creating Milestones
To better track your progress in meeting your smaller goals, I advise you to incorporate a few milestones into your plan.
It’s pretty self-explanatory, but milestones essentially help you determine how well you’re doing towards achieving your smaller goals.
Using the example above, if the goal is to create an additional $15,000 for the first year, then you should have a system in place to check maybe on a monthly, quarterly, or even at the six-month mark to gauge how well you are (or not) tracking towards your goal.
If you find that you are on track or positioned to exceed your initial goal ($15K), then you might consider increasing that goal or adjusting your efforts so you can focus your time and attention on other areas of your business.
But if you find yourself totally off track after the first quarter, for example, this “checkpoint” will give you the jolt you need to revisit your activity and quickly make adjustments.
So, what’s your big dream?
If by now you know already where you see yourself in 5 years from now, Are you ready to start acting on that?
How can you deconstruct it into achievable milestones, workable goals, and finally, daily and weekly tasks? If you can do this…and you definitely can, then you can achieve anything in business and in life!
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