Five-Year Plan

Do you have a five-year plan? What about a personal life plan? Something that you operate off of when it comes to making life decisions? I’ve never had that, and I’m still not sure that I do, or that I believe in them, but my husband and I are tackling the concept recently and it really has me thinking about what I want out of life.

My husband and I had plans. Get married, get stuff done around our newly-purchased house, pay off any debt, maybe have a baby after I finished my master’s degree, he might go back to school, we’d get a dog. That’s just not how things happened.

Two months after getting married, we found out we were pregnant with surprise number one. Shortly after she was born, a situation arose and we needed to move to a different area ASAP. We sold our newly-purchased house after living in it for less than two year. We moved into another house, yet smaller and on a slightly smaller lot, we still loved it.

We went on to have another baby, get another dog, change jobs, get raises, take pay cuts, buy a car, buy a camper, get raises, get more new jobs, etc.

There was no planning. But there was also a huge life lesson in it for me.

No matter what you think will happen, no matter how much you plan, no matter how much money you throw at a situation, you can’t change the outcome. If you are meant to live in the big house you put an offer in on, that’s what will happen. Trying to up your bid a million times and taking a bunch of concessions that will really make your budget pretty tight just won’t work. You just can’t change God’s ultimate plan.

So while I told my husband there are a few things on my goals list, they are just that: goals. They are things that I would like to obtain but I’m going to let things go as they may.

So what’s on my list:

1. Be fulfill in my career. It’s a huge part of my life. I never want to settle.
2. Earn enough money to help support my family and give us a decent life.
3. Spend more quality, one-on-one time with my husband and my children.
4. Work toward completing our house projects: redo the hardwood floors, tile the kitchen and bathroom floors, replace all doors with five-panel doors, improve the grass quality, redo our main bathroom completely.
5. Take on more freelance work.
6. Explore someplace new every year.

But I always know things could change. We might win the Lotto, though we don’t play. I might get laid off. One child might need more of my attention than the other. We could move. Something might prevent us from traveling, camping or visiting new areas. It’s not up to us, but I guess it’s good to have these ideas in place.