Where Do You Want To Be In 5 Years?
I was talking with a valued and well respected friend the other day- is there any other type of friend? - about where we each wanted to be in 5 or 10 years. Oddly, for the first time in my life I really don't know. I hadn't realized it until I thought about it. (Aren't friends great to bring out the hardest questions and make you turn them into reflection?) As it turns out, for the first time in all my memory from early childhood on I don't have a plan for where I would like to be in 5 or 10 or even 1 year from now. That's a bit unsettling for me as it is quite foreign. I'm really not sure what to think about it. Generally I consider that I have had what I recently referred to as a "highly colored and diverse life". I have done a lot, I think. Much has been very normal. A lot has also been on the fringe of the usual routes but not abnormal. Some perhaps downright startling. And so many things I have yet to do. I have missed and squandered opportunities and that is a big part of living, of life and learning. I have seized lots of opportunities. I can have no idea how many opportunities I overlooked. To me those opportunities - seized, squandered or overlooked are all a beautiful thing. So what comes next?
How do you define your life? I have historically defined my life largely in terms of business, career and professional development but always with a big focus on experiences in all realms of the world. To me life is knowledge. Knowledge of oneself (or acknowledgement of how much/little we admit of oneself), a quest for knowledge of others and an enjoyment of what will come come to pass.
As an extremely goal oriented person I am a bit lost without a good goal. Without a goal to strive toward I simply cannot be up to my highest potential. But I have been unable lately to pick exactly what goals I wish to strive toward for 1, 5 or 10 years out. Is it complacency? It sure as hell isn't that I have achieved it all. Have I stopped dreaming as big I have always dreamed my entire life? In part, yes. But mostly- no. Nothing is unattainable. I believe that to the core of my being. So why I have I started to 'meander' and not attempted my normal bee line for the next goal? Hmm... time to reflect on this.
Where do you want to be in 5 years??? Maybe I'll meet you there?