Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
If you’ve ever done a life plan, or worked with a life coach, usually one of the most basic things they will do is ask you to make short term and long term goals. This is an exercise that helps you think strategically about who you want to become and identify action items that will help you on your journey to become those things.
Donald Miller, in his book Hero on a Mission, includes “writing your own eulogy” as a part of his life planning process. This is not a comfortable thing to do. But, if you’re willing to be honest and vulnerable with yourself, it can be one of the most helpful things that you’ll ever do. It forces you to identify what is really most important. And maybe more painful, it forces you to reconcile whether or not your current actions in life lineup with how you’d like to be remembered.
So if I asked you, “where do you see yourself in five years?”, usually our brains jump to where we see ourselves career-wise. And there’s nothing wrong with that. However when I think about this question in light of my own eulogy, listing my job title doesn’t rank that high on things I want people to say about me. I am more concerned about what my wife will say about me as a husband, and what my kids will say about me as a father, then I am with what my job title was. So why don’t we go there first? What if our first thought when asked the question where do you see yourself in 5 years was more like “I see myself as more a more spiritually mature person with a deep and fulfilling relationship with God”, or “I see myself as a better husband because I will have 5 more years of learning how to love Naomi better”, or “I see myself as the Dad who is preparing his sons to leave for college by knowing the biblical definition of manhood and how to live it out”. These thoughts urge me to take action. I don’t want to leave it to chance.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job, and I love getting to work with Chick-fil-A. In fact there is no other job I’d rather be doing on this planet. Many people who may attend my funeral one day, will know me as the Chick-fil-A operator in Mandarin. But I want to be very clear, it’s not the title that matters. I am privileged to do what I get to do, but the meaning that I get out of my job comes from the relationships that I cultivate, not from the title that I carry.
As I write this, my children are ages 12, 11, 9, 7, and 6. Naomi and I have a window of time as we look ahead for the next few years when all of our kids will still be “kids.” There’s only a number of years left where we will all do stuff together. The thought of family vacations with my wife and children all together being over forever in five years is a thought that slaps me in the face. In five years time, as my older kids prepare to leave the house, there won’t always be time to sync up everybody’s schedule so that we can go on vacation together. This thought urges me to take action. I don’t want to miss this window.
A long time ago, I spent time trying to clarify what I want my life to be about. I came up with two statements:
1. To glorify God and enjoy Him forever
2. To fight for things that matter
I hope one day to have grandkids. And when my grandkids are old (and I’m long gone), and they pull my memory off the shelf, that’s how I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered as somebody who lived his life to bring honor and glory to God in all things, and I want to be remembered as somebody who fought for things that mattered. I want to be remembered as a husband who loved his wife faithfully and honored her all the days of my life. I want to be remembered as a dad who showed his sons how to be men of God. As someone who honored his daughters and taught them what it means to be a woman of God. I want to be remembered as a boss who cared deeply and made the lives of the people who worked for him better. And I want to be someone who is remembered for accepting responsibility to be a light for Christ, and a positive influence on the community around me.
What about you? What do you want to be remembered for?
The first step in moving in this direction, is identifying exactly what direction it is you’re trying to move. The next step is identifying the actions that need to happen…likely baby steps, in order to get you in the right direction.
One of my favorite authors/speakers, Henry Cloud, likes to say “You are ridiculously in charge”. He’s right. We are ridiculously in charge of our own lives. Sometimes it’s easier not to admit this so we have an excuse when we don’t turn out how we’d like. We may not be able to control our circumstances, but we are the only ones “in charge” of the person we choose to become (and the person we will be remembered as).
Be honest with yourself for just a moment. What’s one choice (even if it’s a baby step) you need to make today to help your life match more closely match up with how you want to be remembered? Send me a message and let me know how I can encourage you in this.
To be continued…
