My Five Year Plan

This past week I have been doing a lot of self reflection and thinking about the past, present, and future.  Then today, while sitting in church, it hit me. I had a mini breakthrough and I easily became very emotional.  You see, I am turning 25 soon, and I know for a lot of people it is no big deal, but it is a big age for me. About five years ago I had made a five year plan;  a plan for where I wanted my life to be, what I wanted to have accomplished, and how my overall life would look. Honestly, if you look at my current life and then look at my visionary life I made up 5 years ago…… it wouldn’t even look similar;  I felt like such a failure.  

    Five years ago I probably would have said something along the lines of:  In five years I will be a pediatric nurse with a bachelor’s degree at my dream job in a children’s hospital, will be engaged or married and getting ready to have kids, I will have a house, a fancy car, take extravagant vacations every year, and I will be successful.  Now for those of you who know me…. I have none of those things. In my eyes I consider that failing. It is so easy for negative thoughts to then consume you and spiral out of control, and of course that is exactly what happened. I felt crappy, I felt hopeless, and I kind of saw my life as a waste.  I mean it is kind of hard not to think of all of these things as you are looking at your five year plan, and it has been five years and not one thing can be successfully checked off, it stings a bit.

    However, my breakthrough in church!  I don’t know if it was today’s message, or me self- reflecting on my five year journey, or the emotional music, but something clicked.  Yeah, maybe the last five years were not what I was expecting it to be, and the things I thought I wanted didn’t happen, but my life was not a waste and I am not a failure.  I have accomplished so many things in the past five years and my dreams and passions have also changed. The old five year plan just didn’t align with who I was actually becoming and growing to be.  In the last five years I have graduated nursing school with honors, become an aunt to my two amazing nephews, turned 21 and experimented a lot with drinking (those were some fun times), joined crossfit and lost about 65lbs, started my first nursing job and quickly become charge nurse, moved in to my first ever apartment, had oh so many memorable dates (mostly bad..haha), ran my first ever 15k as well as several Spartan races, started going to church, received my Crossfit Level 1 trainer certificate, received my first pediatric nursing job, battled through some addiction problems, bought a new car, built many new relationships with friends and family, decided to get certified in nutrition and personal training, went through injuries and financial struggles, decided to get baptized, coach crossfit in my spare time, and tomorrow I get to start a brand new job at a new hospital, and these are just a few of the highlights.  Does any of that sound like failing? No, to me it is just different. It is a different path than I originally planned and dreamed of, and what an experience to get where I am now.  

    I have a really hard time dealing with change and accepting that things aren’t always going to be how I picture.  This was a perfect example of that. Do I still want some of the things on that original five year plan, yeah for sure, but I believe when the time is right it will happen.  In these last five years, and especially the past two years, I feel I have grown and changed a lot about myself. I feel like I am just getting started with my five year plan because I have bigger and better dreams than before.  I want to start living more in the moment and focus on the here and now, and celebrate the little accomplishments and discoveries about myself along the way. You are not a failure if your life looks different than you had originally thought, it just means God had a different idea for your journey and changed the path you were on.  At least that is how I feel, because I sincerely think that the life I am currently living is 100% better than anything I could have hoped for five years ago. Having a five year plan is good; you get to write down your goals and dreams, and have something to reach for every day when you wake up. Then as the years go by you can adjust your plan to who are becoming or how things are changing.  That is what is so great about a plan… it isn’t concrete and can be adjusted. Who knows, maybe just like me your plan will change because your dreams and passions are bigger than before. Sounds like success to me, and just like that, a breakthrough. Don’t see yourself as a failure, but instead see all that you’ve accomplished and where there is room to grow. God always has a bigger and better plan for you, trust him.