Nick points out in our new book that there is a very successful Japanese company that has a 250 year plan. Personally, I haven’t quite gotten that far. When I was about twenty three, I had a SEVEN year plan. With the reckless lifestyle I led at the time, I figured I wouldn’t live past thirty. So when that proved untrue at thirty, I came up with a FIVE year plan. A key item in this five year plan was to be ready to buy a home by thirty five. I didn’t quite achieve this goal, and realized around this time that my heavy drinking was probably playing a role, so I quit. When you quit drinking, you’re kind of on a one DAY plan, but this worked pretty well. Five years later, I in fact DID have enough money to put a hefty down payment on a house. At the same time though, I had an opportunity to go to Kenya, and part of my five year plan – which included getting married – had me traveling to LA regularly to be with my fiancee. By then, I also had learned that getting into a 15 year mortgage is really debt, not “ownership”, so I opted not to buy a house. I ended up not getting married either.
Does this sound like successful planning to you? I think it was, in spite of the fact that a number of goals weren’t achieved on schedule. For the record, most of my shorter term goals – those in less-than-two-year timeframes – were actually quite on track. And the longer goals that may seem like “failures”? This was when I first started learning a lesson I wish I’d learned much sooner, which is that real happiness lies less in destinations than in enjoying the journey. At this point in my life, I’m setting goals that some would consider INSANE. I know I might not achieve some of the loftier ones, but one thing’s for DARN sure. I would be GUARANTEED not to achieve them if I didn’t at least try.
How about you? Where will you be in a year? Or five years? Or TWO HUNDRED FIFTY?
