I started setting a five year plan when I started college in 1997. I was able to see my life changing and growing by doing that.

That is one reason why I love 43things so much because it encourages people to set goals. Before coming to this website, I was setting a 5 year goal, a yearly goal, monthly goals and sometimes daily goals because I love the way I was growing, changing and improving my life as well as the people around me.

You should thinking about writing one up. Once you accomplish it, it is sooooooo rewarding.

It makes your life more exciting when you have something to work toward.

:o)

When I was 22 I came up with a whole list of things I wanted to do before I turned 30. I don’t know what happened but somehow I lost sight of them, and this year as the big 3-0 approached, I rediscovered my old list as I was cleaning out one of my drawers. Some of the items on my list were big things like get a masters degree and buy a house, others were more frivolous like visit all the provinces and territories of Canada, and others were trying to learn things that somehow fell through the cracks for me like swimming and riding a bike.

I was going through a bit of depression and feeling like I was lost and not near where I wanted to be early this past summer, and a friend suggested to me that I should revisit my goals and try to find my purpose. He eventually told me about 43 Things, which he wasn’t a member of but knew about; he suggested I might find it an interesting forum where I could track and discuss my goals. He told me that of all the things on my list, learning to swim was something that was definitely doable before my birthday and that I shouldn’t let it go or else if I keep giving up on something small like this I’d never get back to it and would always feel some regret. He said I would probably keep this mentality when working on (or rather avoiding) the bigger things.

So, learning to swim was my top priority during the second half of the summer, which I did partly to overcome my fear of the water and partly (mostly?) because I wanted to impress my friend. I didn’t quite make it to the level of proficiency I had wanted before my birthday a couple of weeks ago, but I did make significant progress in overcoming a long-standing fear, which really has given me an added sense of confidence, and I think by next summer I will definitely be able to say I know how to swim.

Well, I guess the point I’m trying to make with all this rambling is that I think it is a good idea to have a solid, but not entirely inflexible, plan to look forward to and to keep you focused…