My five year plan from 2016
I am pretty bored right now in the hospital. Poking around in my computer I found a five year plan I wrote… five years ago! Let’s check it out.
I think I was inspired by this blog post, and made the plan after that.
Looking back, it was a pretty good plan! There isn’t too much in there, it focuses on larger themes rather than detail, and provides things to work towards. Two work-related goals, one financial, one health, and one social.
The twenty-five year goals are similar, except that I put a number on the financial goal (a big, implausible number!).
Let’s see how we did. Green highlights mean I achieved the goal or seem likely to achieve it. Yellow is partially achieved or needs work (in the case of a future goal). Red is failure.
As of now, I achieved the work-related and financial goals for this year (after the five years). I am still doing RetireJapan stuff, and it is getting more and more interesting, with new projects coming online.
Our net worth is considerably higher than it was in 2016, partly because the stock market has been on a tear recently but more because we save and invest a considerable amount of our income. Very much not coincidentally, our youngest daughter graduated from university and moved out in 2016.
The Academy is the secondary section of my wife’s language school. I have done a lot of work on it over the last five years, designing the curriculum and writing materials. It is going well.
Physically however, I am overweight, have high cholesterol, back pain, I am hobbling around the hip replacement ward in the hospital as we speak, and really feel there is a need to turn things around. Hopefully this whole experience will be a wakeup call for me and provide the catalyst I need to live a healthier life going forward.
I don’t make enough time to keep in touch with and spend time with people at the moment, something else that I need to work on in the future.
Looking at the 25-year goals, I already write and talk professionally, and I can imagine that continuing. The financial goal was pretty improbable when I set it, but now seems a bit more likely (still a bit of a stretch). The other goals are a bit too vague to be useful.
All in all, it was interesting to write this plan, all the way back in 2016 (can’t believe it has been five years already!), and very interesting to look back on it. I’m now going to write a new five year plan, and update the long-term plan. I think I’m going to keep it as a 20-year plan though, as I will be 63 then. Setting goals for age 68 might be tempting fate a little 😉
How about you? Do you have specific plans for what you want to achieve in the future?
Great idea. Look forward to following. I have just started creating similar circles now as well actually.
Hey Ben,
Your fitness goal is in the red, but I think that’s the easiest one to fix.
I highly recommend training with resistance bands. I think it’s the way to go for people to keep fit as they “mature”. I especially think it’s good for people with any injury concerns or in your case in recovery from an operation. The reason it’s good is because it’s very functional and more joint friendly than other types of exercise.
I got some cheap bands off Amazon to get started. I may get some higher quality ones later. Then I subscribed to a website called resistancebandtraining.com. The guy behind this is really good. I think his background is in personal training and also physical therapy, so he’s always talking about how to train injury free. Yes build muscle, lose weight, but also focus on flexibility, agility etc.. He gives you training programs but also a good education.
Thanks Trevor! I’ve been using bands with my physio in the hospital, and found them very useful so far. I’ll check out that site too.