…and while we’re at it, throw away your five year plan
When I was younger, there was a very specific compliment I chased. It was written in cursive at the bottom of my middle school report card from my favorite English teacher. Proclaimed over dinner during the holidays by an aunt or cousin after explaining my college plans. Noted by the manager of the brunch restaurant I waitressed at in high school and first year of college, when they asked what I was saving my tips for.
Two blissful sentences:
“Wow, you’re so mature for your age. You really have it all figured out.”
Performative Planning in Ruining Everything
I’ve always been a journaler and an anxious planner. I love(d) to make a time-bound list. A secret milestone contract with myself, that if breached or unfulfilled, I could relentlessly beat myself up until I came to my senses and wrote a plan to get my plan back on track. I created a roadmap to 30. Why 30? Because 13 going on 30…keep up…
It went a little something like this:
By 18: My life would be completely, unshakably, together. I’d go to UT Austin, be a journalism major, and set in motion the plan to become a political correspondent.
By 20: I’d have a fabulous internship in a gritty way. Romanticizing the one coffee pot, carpet from the 80s, and the slight smell of mold, but who cares, because I was writing about things that mattered. I’d have a friend group congruent with Sex and the City. My lifelong best friends would be my bridesmaids, and visit me wherever I ended up.
By 22: I’d have a job offer from a political magazine based in Washington, D.C., and living in a small shoebox apartment that I loved very dearly. Think Belly living in Paris vibes.
By 24: My articles would be consistently placed above the fold, and ideally, I’d have my own column in a magazine or a newspaper. Surely, I’d also be halfway done with my debut novel, and I would definitely be engaged to someone with a vintage emerald cut ring.
By 26: My pillbox apartment would be upgraded for something bigger yet cozier in either DC, Chicago, or Boston. I’d be writing the first draft of my column on a park bench, drinking in a crisp October breeze with orange and yellow leaves peppering my hair and journal.
By 28 (the age I am right now): I envisioned being the head editor or a department lead. I’d have a book deal, a dog, a child, and an at-home library with a ladder that even Martha Stewart would be jealous of.
By 30: I’d be old and established, giving a TED Talk on something important and profound (have mercy on me, when I was 16, TED talks were all the rage), probably with a second child and another dog.
In short, I would be a poli-sci Carrie Bradshaw with an Elle Woods attitude and Lorelai Gilmore aesthetic. A woman who lived for advancing the plot that was life. Seriously, I owned a bag in high school that said, “Be careful, everything you say, can, and will, be used in my novel.”
I had detailed, time-bound, measurable goals for the next 15 years. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs for those of you lucky enough not to be familiar with this corporate acronym) for the personal, professional, and social areas of my life.
Performative planning at its finest.
And still, almost none of those things happened. At least, not in the way that I imagined them.
Big Goals Won’t Make Your Dreams Come True
This past week, I had a session with my executive coach, and we were talking about, you guessed it, goals! In a moment of teary frustration, I exclaimed to her, “I’m so tired of teachable moments. Every time I feel like I’m hitting my stride, something happens. Like I’m running a never-ending marathon wearing a tennis shoe on one foot and a high heel on the other. ”
Taking a sip from her iced coffee, she squinted at me through her thick-framed glasses and casually posed, “Who says you’re not hitting your stride? What if you redefined what ‘hitting your stride’ means? Is it possible you’re just in the stage of life where you’re learning lessons that will serve you later? Will you ever hit your stride?”
Well. Shit.
I spent the next two hours crying and journaling because what do you mean, I may never hit my stride? Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life feeling like this?
No, diva, of course not.
My scientific consensus, based on many hours yapping with my friends over pasta and wine, is that your mid-to-late twenties are hard. For the first time in our lives, the big milestones you have for yourself differ from the people around you. The marching orders of learning to drive, college acceptance letters, moving away from home, internships, legally being able to drink alcohol, graduations, and first jobs all stop.
Some people are investing in their careers, some in building a family. Some are digital nomads, and others are buying houses. All of a sudden, the benchmark for how your life should be progressing disappears, and you start to make arbitrary milestones to make sense of the passage of time.
Then, when your next trip around the sun occurs, you cry after your birthday party because what have you actually accomplished, because technically at 28, I should be getting ready to go on my continental book tour and my firstborn should be six months old already.
Surely you know the feeling?
Big goals won’t make your dreams come true, but a clear vision of the type of life you want to live will.
The Magic Occurs Between The Goals
After sitting with the questions my coach gave me for a few days, here are my responses:
I feel like I’m not hitting my stride because I believed it would look like Andy from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I thought one of the benefits of getting older was getting wiser. Wisdom would allow me to show up to work with more grace, navigate life with more ease.
Without getting into the weeds of my challenges at work, I would redefine hitting my stride as responding to chaos with confidence. Not in the “I have all the answers” type of way, but in the “I have the resources and capabilities to figure it out” kind of way.
Will I ever hit my stride? Probably not. But does anybody?
I did work in musty old offices as an intern for various non-profits, but I didn’t solidify my core group of friends until 26. I didn’t move to DC and become a political correspondent, but I did move to New Orleans and was a fourth-grade special education teacher for several years. I’m not the head editor for a national newspaper, but I am the Marketing and Communications department lead for the non-profit I work for. I haven’t finished my debut novel, but I did publish my debut children’s book. I don’t live in a New England townhouse with a home library and a ladder, but I do have a wonderful husband and own a home in Texas filled with family antiques.
Thematically, I’m on track. I moved away from home (and came back). I’m on a purpose-driven career path and hold a leadership position. I’m still a writer and have rituals to keep refining my craft. I’m an independently published author.
Now, diva, I’m not saying don’t have ambition or goals. What I am saying is that as you get older (and especially in the first five years out of college), the period between work and reward gets larger. It takes longer to see the payoff of all the love, time, and energy you’re pouring into being an adult. Don’t become so frustrated that your life isn’t “going according to plan” that you stop living it. The magic occurs between the goals. Put down your planner and pick up your journal. If I had to bet, you’re probably doing a lot better than you think you are.
Maybe that’s what it’s all about? Doing hard, better.
I think I’m hitting my stride.
Think about it
I want to build on my article about the difference between something being hard and something being rigorous. Usually, tasks feel harder to complete if you are perpetually busy. Here’s a quick four-minute article describing the dangers of that mentality:
The following prompts give you, diva, the opportunity to muse throughout your week:
What are some milestones that you thought would’ve happened to you already? What filled that space instead?
How would you redefine hitting your stride?
Is there any emotion or urge bubbling to the top? Can you make a promise to yourself to spend more time with it this week?
If you’re feeling brave, share your musing via a comment ❤
This space is built in the margins of my full-time job. “Buy Me a Coffee” is my virtual tip jar, helping sustain the writing (and the writer) behind it.
Authored By Alyssa 
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