Plan Ahead

5 Year Plan

Where do you see yourself in five years? This question always seems to come up in interviews. If you’re like me you stumble through the question, not really having thought about it. What I really want to say is “I’m just here for the job. Five years? I haven’t thought past dinner tonight!”  If I were to ask you where you see your marriage in 5 years what’s your response? If you answered, “We’ll be married!” , then even though that’s a great answer it communicates that this is an area that hasn’t been given much thought.   It’s time to stop merely existing as married couples  and start charting a course for your future.

The Forbes article,  “8 Patterns of Successful People” lists the importance of planning ahead.  “Expecting to be successful without a plan or strategy is equivalent to going survival camping on a whim– it might turn into a great adventure, but more likely you’ll get eaten by bears while screaming at Siri for help” (J. Cohen). Marriage can be a fun adventure but just like a road trip in a new town without a GPS you’ll get lost.

So why do some couples fail to plan for the future of their marriages? Part of it is because we do not take time to even think of where we’ve been. The divorce rate  in America is 50-55% . So there is a chance that you’re like me and come from a divorced home. When I got married, I wanted something different from what I came from. I once heard that “You never know where your going until you know where you’ve come from.”

This time of year is a great time to reflect on where we’ve come from. What was our household like growing up? What were some of our past relationships like? These are all things that if never addressed have the ability impact all our relationships. We’re not to look at them with sadness or longing for what could’ve been, but  looking at them in a way where we can learn the lessons we need in order to go where we want to go in our future relationships.

So let’s take inventory of where we’ve been, and look forward to where we are going. We don’t want to repeat our past mistakes, jumping from bad situation to bad situation always wondering why we keep falling for the same traps. What we want to do is see the past for what it was, the past. Good or bad, if properly addressed it can be used to develop a successful marriage with a great future in store.Share what you’ve learned from your past relationships and how it prepared you for the successful relationship that you’re in today.