How to use Long-term plans to achieve your goals

by

Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

Today we’re going to discuss long-term plans.

Long-term plans are the most effective method for achieving your goals. And yet people seem to misunderstand how they work and not use them to their full potential.

This is a 5-minute read.

Let’s go!

To plan, or not to plan

This topic is inspired by a recent tweet of mine where I asked if people had a 5-year plan.

There were only a handful of people out of the 37 that replied who had a 5-year plan. More than half of everyone had some objection to the usefulness of a 5-year plan.

The most common objections looked like this:

  • Plans almost always fail.

  • A plan that long is restricting.

  • 5 years is way too long to plan — Life will change.

  • You can’t possibly know everything that will happen to you.

  • I don’t even know what I’ll be doing next week, let alone in 5 years.

  • I’m afraid of missing out on other opportunities that come my way if I stick to a long-term plan.

Seeing these responses made me realize something.

Most people don’t understand what a long-term plan entails and how to use one.

Let’s go over why these objections miss the point.

Plans fail

When people tell me that they won’t create a plan because a plan will fail anyway.

Then there’s really only one thing to say: “Yes of course!” That’s exactly the point.

Think about it. Suppose you’re into weightlifting. You might set yourself the goal of benching 100kg at the end of the year (or 225 lbs for my American friends).

If you were to reach your goal. Ask yourself, could you have done more?

If you were aiming higher, would you have pushed yourself harder to achieve that goal?

Chances are you could’ve achieved more.

The optimal goal to aim for is one that should be impossible for you to reach, while still being able to get as close to it as possible.

Even when failing to reach your goal, you’ll have made more progress than you would’ve if your goal wasn’t set as high.

In the aforementioned tweet some people asked me what my 5-year plan is.

This was my response:

“The ultimate goal is to free all mankind.”

If your goal doesn't scare you, it's not big enough.

Let that sink in.

Change & Uncertainty

Nobody is saying you have to plan out every single day for the next 5 years.

That’s mad. It would be a lot of wasted effort as well.

It’s true. Life gets in your way. Things won’t go as intended.

So don’t put too many details in your plan. A plan is nothing more than a general overview of the direction you want to work toward.

A well-defined plan starts at a broad and almost vague endpoint and you work your way backward. Getting more and more specific as you get closer to the present.

That process looks like this:

  • Decide where you want to be in 5 years

  • Figure out where you are right now

  • Think about the big milestones you need to achieve to close the gap

  • Work out what you’re missing to achieve those milestones

  • Determine what day-to-day activities will aid you in acquiring those skills and resources you’re missing.

  • Review monthly

The only place where you’ll go into detail is while planning out your day-to-day activities.

These are planned only for the next week/month. Nothing more.

Not restricting yourself

Careful readers might have noticed to clue to this objection in the last section.

“Review monthly”

The act of reviewing is done for a few important reasons.

As mentioned, life changes. And so do you.

Getting closer to your (original) goal means learning and growing. This can (and will) change your goals.

When starting out, most of us don’t really know what we want. We’re guessing at that point.

There’s so much life has to offer. How can we know what we want out of it when we don’t know half of it?

A good plan allows you to pivot and redirect your aim.

Redirecting your aim can be dangerous if done for the wrong reasons.

When deciding on a new path to follow, think about the difficulty of that path.

If the new path will be more challenging to reach, chances are you’re making the right choice.

If, however, the new path is easier, chances are you’re cheating yourself out of your potential by taking the easy (and thus less rewarding) way.

Next week

The topic of next Monday’s issue will be on getting your foundations in order to start building a successful one-person business.

Have a nice week and go take what’s yours!

Cheers,
Alex.

And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

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