Monday

Welcome to Monday! Today, we're chatting about:

• What is a 5-year plan?

• How to create a long-term plan

• Feel your best everyday

• Discover a 5-year diary practice

What Is a 5-Year Plan?

Setting goals is a great way to look ahead to the future. Especially when we identify milestones along the way, this gives us actionable ways to track our progress and feel a sense of accomplishment!

Goals can be short- or long-term. However, one long-term kind of planning can help us map out our next few years: the 5-year plan.

As the name suggests, this kind of goal-planning looks at where you are now and where you'd like to be 5 years in the future!

Maybe your 5-year plan includes some things like:

• Paying off consumer or student debt

• Saving enough down payment for a home

• Planning a wedding

• Adopting a pet

• Going back to school and earning a degree or certificate

While none of these things will likely happen overnight, you can take small steps toward them over the next few years — broken up in your five-year plan!

How To Create a 5-Year Plan

If you're interested in long-term goal planning, it can be daunting knowing where to start. How high is too high to aim?

Here are a few useful tips to create your own 5-year plan:

• Lean into your values: If you aren't sure where you'd like to be, consider what is most important. Then, ask yourself what you can do to make that a bigger part of your life!

• Think small and large: Don't only identify your long-term goals. Also, think of things you'd like to do in the short-term that can help contribute to where you'd like to be 5 years from now!

• Break it up: Rather than thinking of an entire goal as being the end-all-be-all of your 5-year plan, think of steps you can take to feel accomplished along the way! For example, if your goal is to pay off debt, you can break it down into smaller amounts or by individual items.

• Allow flexibility: It's almost certain that unexpected things may happen in life that cause us to shift our focus. Don't be hard on yourself, and give yourself the grace to go with the flow — and change your plans if that's what feels best!

• Check-in: Schedule regular check-ins with yourself to see where you're at in relation to your goals and if there's anything you'd like to do differently!

Feel Your Best Everyday

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Discover a 5-Year Diary Practice

Journaling is amazing because there are so many different ways to make it personal.

Plus, it doesn't have to take much time each day! Even just a few minutes — or a few lines — of journaling each day can have a positive impact.

However, that small impact each day can add up to a long-term practice that we can look back on.

One specific kind of journaling — the 5-year diary — helps you reflect on your past and look ahead.

In this practice, you jot down a few simple notes about your day — you can include where you went, how you're feeling, what you did, and so forth.

Over the months and years, you can reflect on your current day's entry to your previous ones!

When writing a 5-year diary, you can either jot down thoughts freely or use a template with specific topics to stay focused each day. It's all about what works for you!

A Note From Us

Parting Thoughts

• ✅ Did You Know: 51%. While plans can serve as great guides, sometimes, we have to move with the unexpected. And that's okay!

• 🙋🏼‍♀️ Snapshot Of The Day: We'd love to see moments from our readers lives that they are proud of! If you recently accomplished an achievement, experienced a joyful moment, or are proud of a picture you have taken, be sure to capture it on camera and send it to us for a chance to be featured next week! 

• 💭 Final Self-Care Thoughts for Today: Plans are a great way to help us set goals for the future — but don't be afraid to change them along the way!

Enjoying Note to Self?

Know of a great self-care tip or article you'd love to share with the community? Want to send us pictures of you completing one of your self-care rituals? Email us at [email protected]!