In a minute, you’ll wake up to discover you’re five years older.
Like it or not, it’s gonna happen. That’s how it works. Yep, 1,825 days will have passed by in the blink of an eye and you’ll wonder where the heck the time has gone. As you always do. Your life will be a very different place. Of course you’ll be much happier. Your relationships will be amazing. Your career will be flying. Your attitude will be spectacular simply because you choose it to be so. You will have dispensed with all those destructive habits and adopted new positive ones. And you’ll be more optimistic and passionate than ever because unlike some, you’ve chosen to find the good rather than inhabit the bad. Like you did in the old days. Remember 2009? Self-sabotage will be a thing of the past. As will over-thinking. And procrastination. While others are cowering under the covers, you will be kicking fear in the nuts on a daily basis. With your steel-capped nut-kicking boots. You’ll be managing your time and energy much more effectively and you’ll be more productive, stimulated and fulfilled than ever before. And unlike old you, you’ll actually be finishing things; getting the job done. You’ll be all about solutions, not problems. Excuses will be a thing of the past and of course, the insipid people-pleaser will be ancient history too. While everyone else is stressing and over-reacting, you’ll be balanced and calm because by then you will have mastered your internal environment. Yep, five years from now you’ll be part Philosopher, part Zen Master and part High-Achiever. Nice. And let’s not forget your amazing new body. Of course you will have maximised your genetics. Because that was your plan right? You will exercise consistently. You will do what needs to be done. Not what is easy. You will be disciplined, determined, committed, courageous and strong. Your diet will be optimal for your body type, goals and age. Your lifestyle will be a mirror image of your core values and of course you will be lean, strong, functional, healthy and smoulderingly sexy.
Then again, maybe your life will be exactly the same?
Or perhaps worse?
I’ll let you decide. 
xx
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
O.k., I’ve got it (the answer to the problem I mentioned on Facebook). I didn’t realise I had to go to your website (silly me).
Wel, that’s something new I learned today.
Hi Craig,
You may scoff, Oh Wise One, but if I didn’t believe it was possible to achieve at least some of those changes, then I’d probably just walk out the front door right now, get a job on a Norwegian fishing trawler, take up smoking, eat my bodyweight in Dutch liquorice and share my cabin with a salty yet strangely alluring sailor called Sven. Actually …
Next year, I plan to enjoy my (ahem) forties, immensely. The only things I can control are my mind and my body so I’m working on both. Today, I wore a SIZE TEN skirt for the first time this year. Ok, it was an a-line but it still counts, right? I’m so healthy at the moment I’m scaring myself.
I have also booked in for an eight-week meditation course. Soon I’ll make Ghandi look like an over-thinking, flustered worrywart (actually he’s dead so I imagine he’s rather calm but you know what I mean). I hope it won’t make me boring. Oh no, do you think it’ll make me boring? I don’t want to be boring. I’m sure the Dalai Lama is very nice but he doesn’t strike me as wet-your-pants funny. I wonder how many dinner parties he gets invited to?
In five years I’m going to wake up damn proud of myself. And if I don’t, well, there’s always Sven.
Have a lovely weekend.
Christina xxx
Ps No chance of curing the procrastination thing. I have 22 Yr 11 essays on my desk to be marked by the morning. Guess what I’m doing right now? Yep. Shameful.
Heyup Craig, thats wierd, this morning I was thinking about your other five year article where the person wakes up and discovers five years has gone by, kinda like myself. I left college 5 years ago very stressed and anxious about life, shortly after I met my girlfriend, had a troubled relationship (we’re in the process of splitting up) and have been out of the house only a handfull of times in three years due to anxiety, talk about groundhog day! Its time to get focussed, kick fear and avoidance in the nuts and learn from my mistakes. I hope I eventually do. Liking your articles, nice blend of motivation, down to earthness and humour, have a great day!
Oh my, I’m totally going to do all this stuff. No more procrastination. I’m going to maximize the use of my time. I’m going to be a joy to be around. Once I hit my twenties, life is going to be great.
Not.
The problem with setting milestones is that they are in the future. If you have something big you want to do, start on it now. Don’t put it off till your birthday or Christmas or the new year. More often then not, milestones do not work.
Well, all this has already happened, man… (though maybe not quite in a minute; OK it was two hours!)
Last week when I devoured all the articles in here, whereby I got myself a new brain.
N
In 5 years I plan to live an extraordinary life. That’s why I’m putting in the work now.
Hi Craig,
I am reluctant to make advance weekend plans these days much less a five year plan. Things seem to be changing so quickly. I try to leave myself open to possibilities & opportunities.
I know that I am creating my future with the thoughts and actions I have today. I don’t care about attracting things. I think its limiting. So I ask for joy & perfect health on all levels and believe the Universe will bring me the things that make me feel that way.
So, there will be no surprises for me. I will have the life that I have earned.
Craig stop being such a bundle of joy doomsayer
it’s great to plan and set goals, necessary, but some degree of flexibility and going with the flow is also called for. That’s just my view anyway.
Oh BTW Diane’s comment:
“I don’t care about attracting things. I think its limiting. So I ask for joy & perfect health on all levels and believe the Universe will bring me the things that make me feel that way”
I’m half half on that comment, I don’t always agree with leaving everything to the universe and universe knows best because sometimes you have to take actions. Having said that, sitting around doing the law of attraction stuff is limiting. The law of attraction is real, but has been so commercialised and made so difficult with so much you have to do it’s pointless, so maybe Diane’s point is almost like a let life flow attitude, and that’s probably a good strategy. Planning is needed and wise, but some element of just asking is also fine.
G’day Craig
The first line is brilliance. What a hook and implicitly true.
And holy shit Batman!!! The rest of it where I am now (except the sexy…that ain’t EVER going to happen at 52
)
Seriously though, despite the last 7 days being as full on as a week has ever been in my life and I’m talking 4:30am start to as late as 11:00pm every day, I feel that everything else you wrote is where I am.
After talking to the boss yesterday, I think this is my new job description, and I’ve been wanting THIS for the last 10 years???
Realistically, I’m probably at about 2½ years, but on track which I can attribute a large part to my wife, change in job, you Craig, removal from night shift and the associated drugs.
I’ve been very lucky to have landed on my feet (eventually) without exception all my life, but there has always been the need for some input from me and I guess that’s the key.
You’re going to be 5 years older whether you choose to do something about it or sit on your arse and let life happen to you.
What will the rest of you do to arrive 5 years from now? (In a minute)
Thanks Craig
Alan
Christina
. I cacked myself (That should make the foreign readers wonder)
I don’t think you’ll lose your wet-your-pants funny through meditation.
Great comment
Well done with all you’ve achieved so far. Keep it up
Alan (MK2)
Nope. Your post doesn’t scare me at all. Because I’m already half way through my first 5yr “big life change thingie”. Yep, highly advanced technical term there. When I look back over the last almost-3-years, I’ve made HUGE changes in my life for the better. Changes in my mind, my body, my spirituality, my health, my fitness and my environment. It’s all good. And yes, I slip backwards at times .. but that’s life and I’m also learning to be kind to myself. And as long as I’m still moving further forward than I am going backwards, that’s a good thing.
So I’m excited about looking back in another 5 years’ time. At the very least I’ll be a black belt martial artist, possibly working toward my second dan black belt. And along with that, I will be living the lifestyle of a black belt martial artist. Fit, healthy, lean, strong, fast, flexible. Because these are things that are in MY control, so I have no doubt that I will achieve them. Provided I continue to want them enough.
The only other thing I’d like is to find someone – preferably male and single – that thinks I’m as smoulderingly sexy as I do!
Have an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME weekend, all. Hug for you, Craig, plus one for Ron and a kiss for Mary.
Suz
xxxx
Hi,
Michael totally agree, goal setting, determination, commitment and strength are all great but you have to live NOW! not there…
Mind you for me being committed, strong and determined is living now and helps to create the best presence I can imagine!
Will I be, well I am already improving not sure if you can still be sexy at 38 may need some help form a surgeon! What ever it takes:0 Cheers Kate
just over 5 years ago i was married, had our own home, 3 full on little ones and about 30kg heavier. domestic bliss so to speak. fast forward to 2009 I am a single mum with a bi polar unstable ex husband and going thru the aftermath of Black Sat on my own. would never have guessed any of that and the best laid plans of mice and men would not have changed these huge events. those 5 years FLEW past and i spent too much time doing the ‘poor old me’ thing and trying to patch my life with the wrong men (you know who you are!). have made more proactive plans in the last 6 months since the fires than in the last 5 yrs. what i say to all of you is dont wait for your own ‘disasters’ to get you off your butt. the next 5 are the prime years of my life and im not gonna waste them.
Yup, am putting in the groundwowrk now to be a better version of myself in 5 years. Gym 4 times a week is a good start.
Christina…yup an a-line size 10 counts…well done!!!!! A size 10 is a size 10!!!!! (yes I do know they can be different lol)
Have an awesome weekend…5 weeks all you RYLers
Hi there Craig,
Thank you
……… I am working on turning off the inside chaos Craig…. and today’s message is helping…
Bought the book last night….. started reading it…..
Have a great weekend and I hope like me your Mama is getting stronger and better each day……
Laters
Karen xx
Hi all!
I am twenty-three years old and just about to start on my PhD in literature. I can see myself entering a new life, and am very excited and happy.
However, I have been struggling with a pattern of procrastination that has really sabotaged my intentions in the past. I have tried to micromanage my time, drawn up delightfully theoretical time-tables and then – I didn’t execute them. After a week of sticking to the clock and calendar, I let slip, and the whole thing collapsed.
The interesting bit here is that I was the one who did the planning, I was the one who had complete freedom to decide what I wanted to do. Then why did I fall back to procrastinating? Why did I put off things that I liked and wanted to do?
I have tried to believe that if I didn’t stick to a plan, perhaps I wasn’t serious enough about it. But it doesn’t seem like the whole truth, somehow.
Now that I am going to start on something new and exciting, standing at the entrance to what I hope to be an academically fulfilling career, I want very badly to snap out of this wobbly-pulpy-spineless habit.
Please, is there a pattern you can discern here that I haven’t been able to see? I would truly appreciate your comments – need some help here!
Pooja
Hey Craig – can I find some of those nut-kicking boots on eBay? You sure gave me a good laugh this morning. As that Eckhart guy said in The Power of Now – “You believe that the future is your salvation” – I DID believe this! I was totally future focused but am now realizing that it won’t save me from my current dissatisfaction with life. It’s the present that needs to change…
kate – you can absolutely be totally sexy at 38! Check out this 64 year old actor: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3751843328/nm0000545
Craig,
In 5 years I am going to be somewhere totally different to where I have been, this little frog has finally jumped out of the pot of hot water, in the nick of time – I nearly boiled to death.
I have not visited the site for about a month, as I have been putting into action the the work I have been doing challenging some core beliefs and facing some fears.
I have more challenges ahead but my cup is half full not half empty, and choose to keep it that way.
Ginny
I remember another ’5 years ahead’ post a year or two ago from this site.
I’m afraid I don’t have any huge plans for what I will be doing in 5 years from today. My only plan is to be fit, healthy and happy!
To achieve that I work on shorter term goals and focus on focussing on the day at hand and whether I am living a reality in line with my objectives and to how I wanna be or the direction I wanna move in………….or not. But in serious plans for the future I don’t really think anymore than 6-12 months in advance!
This is a great exercise – oh no, wait, it’s my life! But actually, isn’t my life an exercise of sorts where I get to try on all kinds of ideas and gigs and stuff and then when it doesn’t work, oh well, make another plan? Yeah….so here’s how it will be in five years: I live in a farmhouse my husband built on some land with a lake and a garden where we grow most of our food. We have chickens, ducks, maybe a pig and a goat and the requisite dog(s) and cats. When I’m not in the garden I’m making soap or painting or organizing workshops or visits to the farm for people that don’t know how cool it is to know where your food comes from and to work outside and to cook and eat and enjoy what you have. Oh yeah, we also have a terrific wine cellar with all kinds of homemade fruit wines, a fish smoker, a root cellar, a few cabins and yurts scattered around the property where folks can stay when they come to visit. To make a bit of money and get out a bit we take the show on the road to schools and other venues where we talk about healthy living and I’m just finishing my book about our journey, having already published a memoir of sorts about my ancestors and how their wanderlust and creativity helped make me what I am today. Oh yeah, and I look fabulous. Now what’s the first step?
Thanks Kate.
And yes Cdn, it is the present that needs to change, it’s great to think years into the future but things happen, so in 5 years, no idea, just would like to be different from now and leave a lot of things in the past, but that’s not happening ATM.
Good morning,
I would like to thank Michael for reading and providing feed back on my comment. I appreciate it. I was careful to include the idea that I have the life I have EARNED.. That’s action. Not just the life I wished for. I agree that the law of attraction is over commercialized that is why I suggest that we don’t set our sights on attracting things. The universal laws are not really about things, are they?
So you are correct. I advocate allowing yourself the freedom to ” go with the flow’ That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plans but rather, don’t make plans that can not be changed on the fly.
Its Friday morning in the USA and so I sign off
TGIF,
Diane
Thanks Diane. A friend and I were discussing this last night. I have never discounted the Law of Attraction as real. If you say to the universe I want this person, career, body, cash by five years I see nothing wrong with that. But it’s like karma. People tend to have a narrow view i.e. always bad karma, or the Law of Attraction you asked for that nasty car accident. I don’t discount those things, but being flexible; to say 100% you asked for it is silly, but yes thinking about it can produce the result as my friend, a wise person who happens to be a Craig
, said.
Maybe that is what is meant by responsiblity over blame. I am responsible for my 5 year outcome, but not to blame if it turns out bad. That’s my view anyway (blame is such a silly word anyway