How To Figure Out Where You Want To Be In 5 Years

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

My first few weeks in grad school, it felt like I was asked this question daily. Thinking about the future would make my mind go blank. How could I not know what I wanted to do in five years?

I didn't do the math. I didn't think about how old I would be, what could reasonably be accomplished in that amount of time, or what would naturally be happening during those years as part of life. Thinking about it quantitatively makes it more concrete and manageable and allows me to be much more specific. "Five years" is vague, "three years post-graduation" is specific.

I only thought about one area of my life: my career. While that's what people were asking about, what we are able to accomplish in our careers is directly impacted by where we are at in our lives. I didn't think about the fact that in my mid-twenties, I'd want to focus on building a community and creating strong relationships, take a break from working so hard after a rigorous graduate program, and meet my life partner. Consequently, none of that happened in my mid-twenties. All I did was work, because that's the only part of the equation I thought about.

I didn't give myself permission to allow the vision to change. There is no way I could have imagined my life now five years ago. I needed to experience all the things I did to learn about what I did and didn't want. I was paralyzed when trying to envision my future because I thought I had to have the right answer. But now I feel a lot more comfortable in the not knowing. I have a picture of where I want to go, but I also am not so arrogant as to believe I know what's right or that my current perception of the world is complete. I have more faith that I will get to where I need to go, even if I'm not completely clear on where that is.

Since I didn't know what I wanted, I started with what I didn't want. For a lot of us, that's pretty clear. Focusing on what you don't want can help narrow things down and keep you from pursuing things that aren't the right fit. For me, it's how I learned that I wanted to work for myself. I finally figured out the reason I couldn't find a job I wanted was because I actually didn't want a job - I wanted to start my own business.

Once I had a list of what I didn't want, I was able to see what I did want.  I focused less on the logic and more on the desire. Less on the how and more on the what. For me, it was easier to start with lifestyle because thinking about my career still made me freeze up. But what I did know was that I wanted to work from home, for myself. I wanted a peaceful, beautiful home with nature close by. I wanted a partner and a child.

I used my imagination and intuition rather than my logic. One day, instead of trying to use my mind to decide what I wanted my job to be, I instead imagined my morning getting ready for work, three years from now. What I saw was a simple image: me, in my kitchen, making a cup of tea before I headed into my home office. I saw what I was wearing, what my kitchen looked like, what was outside my window. That's all I had. Just this little moment.

But I held onto that snapshot, and slowly other things came into focus. I knew that I wanted to start my own business, so I started thinking of how I could accomplish it. It started with consulting in my previous field, which I didn't end up doing. But in the process, I learned what I needed to do to start a business. I started figuring out what I needed to get more clarity, and took steps towards that. For me it was time off, so I started saving money to be able to do that.

I took the pressure off of myself. I forced myself not to think about how I was going to make money for two months after I quit my job, and just let myself explore life and enjoy it. When I finally allowed myself to start thinking about it, I was brimming with ideas.

The more I walked towards my vision of myself, the more things fell into place and became more clear. Once you start down the path, the details will fill in. I loved how much it felt to stand in that image that when I thought about it I didn't want to leave. I thought about it daily; it propelled me forward.

As I started to take steps towards that vision, little pieces started to fill in naturally and the details started to become clear in the picture. For weeks I reminded myself to get out of my head and let my heart lead me, and step by step I started getting clearer on my vision: the type of work I would be doing, how I wanted to be making money, the kind of money I wanted to be making.