I first heard about writing down a 10-year plan after listening to the Debbi Millman episode of the Tim Ferriss podcast. I've been having some really bad anxiety for the past week and this has really helped me out. I was fearful of the future because it was uncertain, but now that I have done this exercise I look forward to it.
What is the 10-year plan exercise? It's an affirmation exercise where you write what your life would look like 10 years from now, then read this essay every year. Try to be as detailed as possible in it.
I first considered this an "action fake" until after I did it. Now I have exactly what I want in my mind and now I just take steps everyday to achieve my vision.
Here's a transcribed version of the questions you need to ask yourself from the podcast. I didn't follow it exactly but it still really helped me.
So let say it is Winter 2027. What does your life look like? What are you doing? Where are you living? Who are you living with? Do you have pets? What kind of house are you in? Is it an apartment are you in the city are you in the country? What does your furniture look like? What is your bed like? What are your sheets like? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have?
Tell me about your pets, tell me about your significant other, do you have children? Do you have a car? Do you have a boat? Talk about your career. What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making? What excites you? What is your health like?
And write this day, this one day ten years from now. So one day in the winter of 2027, what does your whole day look like? Start from the minute you wake up, brush your teeth, have your coffee or tea, all the way through until minute you tuck yourself in at night. What is that day like for you?
Dream big, dreams without any fear. Write it all down. You don’t have to share it with anyone other than yourself. Put your whole heart into it. And write like there is no tomorrow; write like your life depends on it because it does.
And then read it, once a year, and see what happens.
It’s magic.
Mine is down below and I hope to read all of yours.
My 10-Year Plan
I wake up at 4:30 in the morning to my amazing wife Mandi who is snuggling right next to me in our beautiful home. The bed is super comfy and I woke up without an alarm clock, waking up at 4:30 is normal for me. Mandi is still sound asleep so I give her a kiss on the forehead and I get out of bed to start my morning ritual.
I walk into my workroom which consists of a small computer desk and 2 walls of bookshelves stuffed with books. In the middle, there is a rug which a big comfy chair on it where I do 2 hours of reading every morning. My morning ritual starts with journaling in Evernote and identifying things I am grateful for. My list usually includes Mandi and the kids, how fortunate we have been, and how big Stand Yourself Up has become.
I pick out the newest book by MJ DeMarco and I start my 2-hour reading ritual. I am super grateful that I started reading books 15 years ago that has changed the trajectory of my life for the better. It all started with The 4 Hour Workweek, then I stumbled upon Simple Programmer, and then eventually I read The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted .
When I finish my reading it is 6:45 am. I wake up the kids for school and Mandi is up too and we all get ready for our day. I make the family a light breakfast consisting of an omelet and broccoli.
When I was growing up, my parents would always have the local news on in the morning. I would watch it sometimes but I was mostly disinterested, also I don't want to start the day off with something negative. So instead of the news we always have some sort of educational kids show on in the morning that we could all learn from. After breakfast is done we send the kids to school and Mandi and I go our separate ways. I go to work on Stand Yourself Up and my personal blog, while she goes and runs her daycare business.
I hop onto my computer and start with my most important tasks that I wrote down the night before. I have a new design launching today for Stand that people are super excited about, I've been teasing it for the past month! Stand has been blowing up and so far we have raised over $10,000,000 for children who are bullied! We have over 1 million Instagram followers (who would have known that Instagram would still be around these days?), 750,000 email subscribers, and a lot of traffic to our site. Our traffic mostly comes from the blog I started 10 years ago which has become the #1 blog people go to for help when they are bullied.
Most of our sales come from super fans of our brand. They promote Stand Yourself Up for us since they are just as passionate as we are about stopping bullying and also want to increase people who were bullied's confidence.
Mandi usually gets home around 1 pm from managing the daycare business and when she gets home we go for a run. Our running route is the same every day, just a few blocks in our neighborhood. We are so consistent, our neighbors could time their clocks based on when they see us running.
Once we are done with our run we go into our lifting routine, today is squats and deadlifts. We alternate between strength training and body weight exercises. This month we are trying to do a couples' 500 push-ups in a row challenge!
We finish our workout and the kids get home. For 1 hour after school, we homeschool our kids. Our homeschooling topics aren't things that their teachers would teach them. For example, today's topic is how to manage money, something that is STILL not taught in schools.
After we are done homeschooling I start making dinner (it's my turn today). We like to eat healthy as a family and we eat homemade meals 6 times a week, on the weekends we like to go out to eat.
We finish dinner and we start family leisure time. The kids like to play by themselves most of the time but sometimes we play a board game or watch a movie together.
Once we finish up it is about 8 pm and it's bedtime for the kids. We get them ready for bed and send them on their way.
Usually, at night I like to learn something interesting. It could be working on a new side project, a piece of art, a new house project, or going through a course. But tonight is a special night because it is Mandi and I's date night. We have been taking dance classes for the past 10 years now and we have gotten pretty good (she still makes me look like I have 2 left feet though). We like to go out for drinks and dance at a local bar from time to time. We have to practice for our upcoming competition which we should do really good at. We start getting ready as soon as the kids go to their rooms and we leave once the babysitter arrives.
Once we get home I practice Japanese (my sixth language) for about 10 minutes and then we get ready for bed.
I bet you're wondering how I got here, how I could afford to live a lifestyle like this. Well, we don't really need that much money when it comes to our lifestyle, but we have made a lot of money along the way anyway. We are completely financially independent because of Stand Yourself Up and my many real estate investments. I worked full time as a web designer/developer for 8 years (quit 2 years ago) while building Stand on the side during nights and weekends. I would work on it every day consistently, even if I did just a little bit. We never really spent that much money and we invested most of it into Stand Yourself Up and real estate. Since we have so much disposable income, we go on bi-annual family vacations for 2 weeks. So far we have visited many cities and countries including Tokyo, London, Paris, and Jamaica.
This is what I want my life to look like, what do you want to do with yours?
What is the 10-year plan exercise? It's an affirmation exercise where you write what your life would look like 10 years from now, then read this essay every year. Try to be as detailed as possible in it.
I first considered this an "action fake" until after I did it. Now I have exactly what I want in my mind and now I just take steps everyday to achieve my vision.
Here's a transcribed version of the questions you need to ask yourself from the podcast. I didn't follow it exactly but it still really helped me.
So let say it is Winter 2027. What does your life look like? What are you doing? Where are you living? Who are you living with? Do you have pets? What kind of house are you in? Is it an apartment are you in the city are you in the country? What does your furniture look like? What is your bed like? What are your sheets like? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have?
Tell me about your pets, tell me about your significant other, do you have children? Do you have a car? Do you have a boat? Talk about your career. What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making? What excites you? What is your health like?
And write this day, this one day ten years from now. So one day in the winter of 2027, what does your whole day look like? Start from the minute you wake up, brush your teeth, have your coffee or tea, all the way through until minute you tuck yourself in at night. What is that day like for you?
Dream big, dreams without any fear. Write it all down. You don’t have to share it with anyone other than yourself. Put your whole heart into it. And write like there is no tomorrow; write like your life depends on it because it does.
And then read it, once a year, and see what happens.
It’s magic.
Mine is down below and I hope to read all of yours.
My 10-Year Plan
I wake up at 4:30 in the morning to my amazing wife Mandi who is snuggling right next to me in our beautiful home. The bed is super comfy and I woke up without an alarm clock, waking up at 4:30 is normal for me. Mandi is still sound asleep so I give her a kiss on the forehead and I get out of bed to start my morning ritual.
I walk into my workroom which consists of a small computer desk and 2 walls of bookshelves stuffed with books. In the middle, there is a rug which a big comfy chair on it where I do 2 hours of reading every morning. My morning ritual starts with journaling in Evernote and identifying things I am grateful for. My list usually includes Mandi and the kids, how fortunate we have been, and how big Stand Yourself Up has become.
I pick out the newest book by MJ DeMarco and I start my 2-hour reading ritual. I am super grateful that I started reading books 15 years ago that has changed the trajectory of my life for the better. It all started with The 4 Hour Workweek, then I stumbled upon Simple Programmer, and then eventually I read The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted .
When I finish my reading it is 6:45 am. I wake up the kids for school and Mandi is up too and we all get ready for our day. I make the family a light breakfast consisting of an omelet and broccoli.
When I was growing up, my parents would always have the local news on in the morning. I would watch it sometimes but I was mostly disinterested, also I don't want to start the day off with something negative. So instead of the news we always have some sort of educational kids show on in the morning that we could all learn from. After breakfast is done we send the kids to school and Mandi and I go our separate ways. I go to work on Stand Yourself Up and my personal blog, while she goes and runs her daycare business.
I hop onto my computer and start with my most important tasks that I wrote down the night before. I have a new design launching today for Stand that people are super excited about, I've been teasing it for the past month! Stand has been blowing up and so far we have raised over $10,000,000 for children who are bullied! We have over 1 million Instagram followers (who would have known that Instagram would still be around these days?), 750,000 email subscribers, and a lot of traffic to our site. Our traffic mostly comes from the blog I started 10 years ago which has become the #1 blog people go to for help when they are bullied.
Most of our sales come from super fans of our brand. They promote Stand Yourself Up for us since they are just as passionate as we are about stopping bullying and also want to increase people who were bullied's confidence.
Mandi usually gets home around 1 pm from managing the daycare business and when she gets home we go for a run. Our running route is the same every day, just a few blocks in our neighborhood. We are so consistent, our neighbors could time their clocks based on when they see us running.
Once we are done with our run we go into our lifting routine, today is squats and deadlifts. We alternate between strength training and body weight exercises. This month we are trying to do a couples' 500 push-ups in a row challenge!
We finish our workout and the kids get home. For 1 hour after school, we homeschool our kids. Our homeschooling topics aren't things that their teachers would teach them. For example, today's topic is how to manage money, something that is STILL not taught in schools.
After we are done homeschooling I start making dinner (it's my turn today). We like to eat healthy as a family and we eat homemade meals 6 times a week, on the weekends we like to go out to eat.
We finish dinner and we start family leisure time. The kids like to play by themselves most of the time but sometimes we play a board game or watch a movie together.
Once we finish up it is about 8 pm and it's bedtime for the kids. We get them ready for bed and send them on their way.
Usually, at night I like to learn something interesting. It could be working on a new side project, a piece of art, a new house project, or going through a course. But tonight is a special night because it is Mandi and I's date night. We have been taking dance classes for the past 10 years now and we have gotten pretty good (she still makes me look like I have 2 left feet though). We like to go out for drinks and dance at a local bar from time to time. We have to practice for our upcoming competition which we should do really good at. We start getting ready as soon as the kids go to their rooms and we leave once the babysitter arrives.
Once we get home I practice Japanese (my sixth language) for about 10 minutes and then we get ready for bed.
I bet you're wondering how I got here, how I could afford to live a lifestyle like this. Well, we don't really need that much money when it comes to our lifestyle, but we have made a lot of money along the way anyway. We are completely financially independent because of Stand Yourself Up and my many real estate investments. I worked full time as a web designer/developer for 8 years (quit 2 years ago) while building Stand on the side during nights and weekends. I would work on it every day consistently, even if I did just a little bit. We never really spent that much money and we invested most of it into Stand Yourself Up and real estate. Since we have so much disposable income, we go on bi-annual family vacations for 2 weeks. So far we have visited many cities and countries including Tokyo, London, Paris, and Jamaica.
This is what I want my life to look like, what do you want to do with yours?
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