The Five Year Plan

It’s been a while since I last wrote. To be honest, I’ve had a bit of a ‘writer’s block’ and words haven’t come as naturally. I think it’s because I’ve watched too much “Drunk History” and even my words are starting to slur. While I haven’t been writing much, I have been listening a lot. So many people in our generation have the same story and I’m beginning to wonder if all generations are similar. Are we, the millennials, less special than we think we are? If that’s the case, that would be very appropriate.

Moving on…

“You know what I hate about your generation?” This question is usually meant to be rhetorical and is almost always spoken by a bespectacled older gentleman who feels the need to impart wisdom by beginning with negative feedback. What inevitably follows is something like “You don’t know what it means to do hard work” or “You don’t know what you’re doing with your life.” Both are  general statements based on an experience with one Millennial, word of mouth, or written stereotypes in articles. Similarly, I just wrote a generalization about the presumably, baby boomer generation.

While I despise generalizations, we all make them. In fact, I would say that the latter statement has some truth to it. I was sitting in my office with my co-worker, asking him whether a job he was interested in would actually take him on his career path. While the map we create has many paths and many closed doors (at first), the paths should have a general direction. His response wasn’t very satisfying and to me, it sounded like he was chasing dollars. I have no problem with that, but does money buy happiness? It’s a short-term goal and short-term is never satisfying in the long-term.

After the conversation, I realized that having a five year plan is pretty important to defining who you are and what you want. While I encourage you to not plan everything because life will throw curve balls, you need to have a map. In that map, you need to have a five year plan.

For example, here’s what my five year plan looks like. It’s based off what I’m currently doing, what I know will happen, and how I can use the present to get to my future goals. Notice, there are no arrows or sequence of events because I don’t know how I’ll get there. I also want to note that I have two clear paths…

Move to the Netherlands (this is happening, so I thought it would be a good starting point)

• Become a change maker
• Implement what I learned in the Netherlands
• Move back to the U.S. (most likely)
• Potentially move back to hospitality

• Become an expert in “millennials” (at least more of an expert than I am)
• Publish the survival guide and earn money from it. Enough to pursue authorship full-time
• Speak at conferences, sessions, colleges, wherever
• Start my second book about the societal shift

• Make 6 figures by the time I’m 30

This might not look like a map because I can’t illustrate a map in wordpress, but it is. It’s a 5 year plan. I have some idea on how to get to all these places, but no idea which road is the better road to take or which will pan out. However, it’s still a 5 year plan. If someone asks me why I am making the career decisions I’m making (or not making for that matter), I can point to my 5 year plan and use it as my pitch. While I have two distinct paths, I’m not entirely uncertain they won’t merge at some point, as they are doing now.

My favorite phrase is “Whatever happens, happens for a reason…” with the caveat “I’m the reason.”