What are Your Five-Year Goals?

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I’ve been editing quite a few books recently where the authors are looking back at their lives and thinking about where they currently are compared with the earlier goals that they had set for their lives. Goals that they had made for themselves when they were young and idealistic. Some of these goals were big and audacious, meant to keep them always moving forward. Some were small and achievable, always giving a sense of progress.

I’ll be celebrating a major milestone birthday next year. I’ll be hitting the big 5-0, and I have already started to reflect on where I am compared with my earlier goals.

Oh, who am I kidding. I’ve never been one to have major life goals that I meticulously planned out and then diligently worked toward. I just sort of allowed myself to float along life's currents wherever they took me. 

I only applied to two colleges (UC Irvine and UC Berkeley). I got into Berkeley, and took the major (English Literature) that was the most fun and enjoyable for me. 

I jumped at the first job I applied for (layout designer and editor for a nonprofit), and then stayed at each successive job until layoffs pushed me on to my next endeavor. Somehow, I always managed to stay in the publishing industry.

The final layoff of my corporate career landed me in the middle-age no man’s land of job searching, so I took the route of least resistance again, freelancing. 

The beauty of this freelancing route, though, is that it has given me the energy and the time to really think about longer-term goals rather than just getting through day by day, only looking forward to the weekend and vacations.

I’ve now set a goal for myself that I know is achievable, even though I know that it will be hard work. In five years, I will be a published author. Not just the author of a completed novel. I know that I can do that, because I have just completed that part of my goal. No, my goal is to be published. 

Once I have gone through the revisions that this book needs, I will pound the pavement and do the hard work to try and get traditionally published. If that doesn’t work, I will also certainly consider self-publishing. That is not something that I eschew. And, I would also consider it a completion of my goal.

It feels good to have a solid goal that I can work toward. It is a vision that guides the work that I do each day.

What are your long-term goals? How are you putting them in motion? Share your thoughts in the comments below.