Create Your Ten Year Plan
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Citay, “On The Wings”
What Does Your Future Hold?
“People overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten.”
– Bill Gates
Create Your Ten Year Plan
Have you ever thought to yourself, “What’s my TEN year plan?” It can be difficult to think about your life and your goals on such a long timeline, but it’s important to consider where you want to go, so that you can take positive action to make it happen. It’s incredibly powerful too: You can do SO MUCH in the next ten years.
Truthfully, creating incredible (like, jaw-droppingly amazing) kinds of BIG changes are practically inevitable when you are running a long-game life plan. Trust me, I have seen countless therapy and life coaching clients achieve some REALLY big goals. Things will certainly be different for you ten years from now. But only YOU have the power to guide the arc of change in the direction you want it to go.
You Have The Power To Create Your Future
Life paths tend to go in one of two directions: Moving forward towards growth, which requires cultivation and intention. Or, in the absence of that, the path of least resistance leads to carry us downward, over time. If you’re not paying attention, as many extremely wise people before me have observed, things tend towards “entropy,” (aka, disorder and chaos) unless we’re deliberately putting energy into them. (Stop doing your laundry for a few weeks if you’d like to test my theory for yourself!)
That’s a short term example though. Think about what happens to a home that’s not maintained, or a relationship that’s chronically neglected, or the personal finances of someone who never saves money… over very long periods of time. It’s not good.
It’s very easy to unintentionally create those types of outcomes, through doing what is easiest to do, which is:
- Not thinking about what we really want, long term.
- Not having awareness about the negative impact of some of our daily decisions on our long term goals.
- Not having clarity about what, specifically, we need to invest our time and energy into to get there.
That’s the effortless path. The path towards growth, advancement and success can also be surprisingly easy to do, but only if you know the critical keys to success.
The Keys To Success: Clarity + Action
The key to achieving real and lasting success in life, in love, and in work is to understand that small things, over time, lead to big things. Understanding that basic principle and working with it, will allow you to achieve amazing things with much less effort than you might think.
This type of practice is even more powerful when it is done in alignment with your core values and your full awareness of what is really and truly most important to you. That may sound obvious but take it from an experienced life coach and therapist: A lot of people are spending a lot of time and energy attempting to achieve goals that — upon deeper exploration — are not genuinely meaningful and important to them. (Please see “Design Your Life Around What Matters Most” for more on this subject.)
Knowing who you are, what is most important to you, and what you really want is only the first step though. Then, you have to pay close attention to what you do.
Your life — ALL of our lives — are absolutely filled with those teeny-tiny moments that will either carry us towards our ideal future, or away from it. If you’re clear about where you want to go and you have clarity about what you need to do (and NOT do) to create that, you’re empowered to actively create your future reality.
My Ten Year Plan Tool: Free, Easy, and YOURS
To assist you in getting the clarity you need about where you want to go, what types of activities will take you there (as well as clarity about what will pull you off your happy path) I have created something special for you: A free planning tool called “My Ten Year Plan.” Here’s how it works.
Step 1: Listen to the “How to Create Your Ten Year Plan” episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast to cultivate a long-game, growth-oriented mindset and learn how to use the ten year planning tool.
Step 2: Sign up (above or below) to allow me to send you:
- Our free, online Ten Year Plan tool that you can use on your phone, tablet, or computer.
- Or, if you’re a paper-person, access to our free, downloadable pdf worksheet that you can print out and use to create your plan.
Step 3: Walk through the “My Ten Year Plan” activity!
You’ll be prompted to answer thought provoking questions to help you:
- Uncover your most important values
- Develop appreciation for how powerful you are
- Understand your most significant strengths and growth opportunities
- Get clarity about what you want for your future
- Create an action plan to create your ideal reality… ten years from now.
I sincerely hope that this Ten Year Plan activity empowers you to make your life — ten years from now — exactly what you want it to be.
Your partner in growth,
Listen & Subscribe to the Podcast
Create Your Ten Year Plan
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Citay, “On The Wings”
Free, Expert Advice — For You.
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Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self. She is a licensed psychologist, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a board-certified coach, as well as the author of “Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love,” and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.