What Can You Accomplish In Five Years?

What Can You Accomplish In Five Years?

Thought For The Week

We greatly overestimate what we can accomplish in one year. But we greatly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years. * Peter Ferdinand Drucker

After many years of living I have discovered that life is often best lived with moments of looking backwards.

The challenge with looking backwards is that as humans we tend to look at what went wrong instead of what we have accomplished.

Particularly when we are young we tend to set goals that are mammoth and often difficult to achieve particularly on the short time lines that we expected. This often causes us to lose site of our Bigger Picture and let go of our dreams.

Right now I am in a huge process of change in my life again. Letting go of the big home and all the possessions and moving into much smaller space in order to free myself up to do what really counts and a bit of travelling to boot.

So in going through bits of 4 generations of stuff in this house I am looking backwards again.

Looking backwards here are some things that I have uncovered about my life.

In five years I was able to marry, buy a home and have a child or create a family.

In five years I was able to invest in a few properties, maintain and manage them and ultimately become a millionaire.

In five years I was able to build a sustainable business at least 80% based on repeat and referral customers.

In five years unfortunately, family members die and depart us and force us to face more change & challenges.

In five years marriages can come to an end and families can be split apart.

In five years health can change radically both for the worse and for the better. I could go on…..but you get the idea.

So what is important about all this? That life is a process and not an event.
That we have to stay the course for the long term.

That both good and bad will happen but in the end with reasonable management most things come out okay.
That we need to set big pictures and big goals but realize that things will shift along the way and we must make changes with the shifts.

That it won’t always be rosy and there will be some tears. And yet we survive and mostly thrive in the end.

Most important is that effort is often cumulative.

That one year builds on the next one.

That efforts pile up one on top of each other and before you know it something of substance has been created.
That substance may be financial, family a business success and ideally a little of all three.

Hope this Helps.
Aeriol