As we continue our December journey of reflection and preparation for 2024, today’s focus is on a strategic and insightful exercise for crafting a future that truly resonates with your vision.
Building on the insights we gained from the eulogy/tombstone and rocking chair life vision exercises in previous posts, let’s dive into a powerful strategy for transforming your long-term aspirations into immediate, actionable steps. This is the 10-5-3-1-3 exercise.
The Objective: Bridging Vision with Action
The 10-5-3-1-3 exercise serves as a bridge, connecting your ultimate life vision and purpose with real-time actions you can take right now.
If your ideal eulogy and 90-year-old self embody your hopes, dreams and life purpose, how do these translate into tangible goals and benchmarks over the next 10 years, 5 years, 3 years, 1 year, and even just the next 3 months?
This exercise aims to help you chart that course and align each phase of the journey towards making your boldest visions a reality.
Step-By-Step Guide
Here is a step-by-step guide to completing this insightful exercise:
10-Year Vision: Begin by envisioning your life a decade from now in 2033. What have you achieved? Who have you become? What does your life look like? Who are you being? Set a timer for 10 focused minutes and jot down as much detail as you can about your 10-year vision. Paint a vivid picture of the life you aspire to in a decade.
5-Year Milestone: Next, rewind halfway and consider where you need to be in 2028 to be on track to actualize your 10-year vision for 2033. If certain accomplishments, growth, or transformations need to happen by year 10, what has to occur by year 5 to make that possible? Spend another dedicated 10 minutes detailing your 5-year milestone.
3-Year Target: Now zoom in closer. Focus on what you aim to achieve by 2026 to pave the way for your 5-year milestone, which then sets you up to realize your 10-year vision. What needs to be in place within 3 years? Dedicate 10 minutes here as well to outline specific aspirations for 2026.
1-Year Plan: Great, you now have a decade-long trajectory mapped out, with milestones at years 5 and 3. Let’s make this tangible with a detailed plan for the immediate year ahead in 2024. Outline what you need to accomplish in the next 12 months to progress towards your 3-year target. Spend 10 focused minutes brainstorming and documenting your 1-year plan.
3-Month Action Plan: Finally, get ultra-specific. Identify the most vital actions to take in the next 3 months to kickstart momentum on your 1-year plan. What can you do by March 2023 that launches you towards your longer-horizon goals? Allocate 10 minutes to detail tangible steps for the next 3 months. Keep this list simple - 1 or 2 actionable ideas that you can commit to are much better than 10 ideas that are unrealistic, hard to complete, or that you won’t commit to
The Key: Connecting Vision to Action
The key is to treat each step as essential and interlinked, not as isolated phases. Commit focused time and energy to articulating your vision at the bookends of 10 years and also 3 months. Then build the bridge step-by-step in between over 5 years, 3 years and 1 year. Document insights from each phase.
While it may take an hour or more to complete this full exercise, it’s a worthy investment in your future. Don’t rush through it. Feel free to spend extra time visualizing and planning each stage. Particularly dedicate effort to outlining immediate actions for the next 3 months and 1 year, as tangible steps you can take right away towards your biggest life goals and vision.
This exercise isn’t just about setting SMART goals for each timeframe, as valuable as that is. It’s about crafting an aligned narrative for your life across the next decade and beyond —turning dreams into plans, and plans into reality.
Insights and Takeaways
Here are a few key insights and takeaways from the 10-5-3-1-3 exercise:
It illuminates the relationship between long-term purposes and short-term priorities. A decade is made meaningful by what you do today.
It prompts richer ideation by allowing your vision to become big and bold when looking out 10 years, before cascading back down to immediate actions.
It creates urgency and focus by requiring you to detail exactly what you can do right now.
It yields a comprehensive roadmap, aligning each phase and milestone across a multi-year journey.
It drives clarity on priorities by revealing which goals across timeframes are truly most vital to your life vision.
Turning Vision into Action with Coaching
As you reflect on your 10-5-3-1-3 exercise outcomes and plan for 2023, I encourage you to also consider involving a coach. Whether it's me or another trusted mentor focused on realizing your potential, an expert coach provides invaluable support including:
Guiding you through goal-setting and planning exercises to yield clarity and commitment.
Serving as an accountability partner to ensure you follow through on actions.
Providing assessments and feedback to build self-awareness and targets for growth.
Offering tools and frameworks to structure your development.
Sharing wisdom and insights as a thought-partner throughout your journey.
If you see coaching as a potential accelerator on your path towards your biggest life goals and vision, I welcome you to reach out. I'd be delighted to learn more about your aspirations and how I can support your continued success through evidence-based coaching.
Now over to you - what insights, takeaways or immediate next actions will you take from the 10-5-3-1-3 exercise? I welcome you to share your thoughts and progress in the comments, and let’s continue inspiring each other in this community of growth and development!