How To Make A 5 Year Plan You’ll Actually Stick To (Free Printable Journal)

I found a list in an old notebook with three goals. All three are still on my list now, word for word; which I think is the part that stung.

I hadn’t failed at them. I’d just never actually done anything about them, because for 4 years they lived in a notebook in a drawer under a phone charger and a menu for a restaurant that closed.

And listen, it’s not that I wasn’t trying. i was VERY busy trying.

The problem wasn’t effort, it was that a 5 year plan sounds enormous, and enormous things get avoided.

Five years?! I don’t know what I’m having for dinner tonight.

Why most 5 year plans fall apart

People treat the plan like a contract.

It isn’t one. Life happens, kids grow up, businesses change, someone offers you something you couldn’t have predicted, and the second reality wanders off the plan, you decide the plan is ruined, and you bin it.

Think of it like your navigation instead. You know where you’re going, and if there’s traffic you take a different road, and the navigation app does not shout at you about it. Destination stays, route changes.

That’s the whole mindset. .

Step 1: Describe a Tuesday, not a job title

Before you write a single goal, write the life.

Five years from now, what does an ordinary Tuesday look like? Not a holiday, not the highlight reel, a Tuesday.

• Where do you live?
• What are you doing for work?
• How much are you earning?
• What do you do first in the morning, before anyone needs anything from you?
• How do you feel physically?
• Who’s around?
• What have you STOPPED doing?

Notice I didn’t ask what you own. That’s on purpose, because I once made a vision board with a BOAT on it. A boat! I don’t want a boat, I get motion sick in a taxi. It went on there because that’s what success looks like in stock photos and I wasn’t paying attention.

Write it all down and don’t edit while you write. Dream first, be sensible in step 3.

Step 2: Pick 3 to 5 goals. That’s it. That’s the number.

The mistake I see constantly is people trying to fix everything at once.

Career. Fitness. Money. Sourdough. Relationships. Learn Italian. Renovate the kitchen. Volunteer. Read 52 books. Take up running. Get better at boundaries. Start a podcast.

WHY, THO???

Nobody can do that. You’d need staff.

So pick a handful, 3 to 5, and write down why each one matters to you. That “why” is the bit you’ll need in month 7 when the excitement’s worn off and it’s raining.

Some examples of what a real one looks like:

Money: save a house deposit, or build up 3 months of expenses so a bad month stops being a crisis.

Career: get the promotion, or get out and build the thing you keep describing to people at parties.

Health: move consistently, sleep like an adult.

Personal growth: go back to school, learn the skill you’ve been circling for 2 years.

When everything’s a priority, nothing is, and you end up doing the easiest one and calling it a Tuesday.

Step 3: Work backwards, year by year

This is my favourite bit, and it’s the one that makes 5 years stop feeling like a cliff.

Don’t ask what you should do today. Ask what has to be true BEFORE the 5 year goal is possible, then walk it back.

Say the goal is your own business, full time.

Year 5: the business replaces your income. Year 4: consistent clients and money that repeats. Year 3: the audience is real and there’s more than one way money comes in. Year 2: first product or service is out in the world. Year 1: learn the skills, get the site up, publish stuff regularly even though it’s a bit embarrassing at first.

Give each year a theme while you’re at it. One word. Year 1 is Foundation, year 3 might be Visible, year 5 might be Rest.

Then 3 milestones per year. THREE. Not 14. If you’re writing 14 you’re not planning, you’re panicking.

Step 4: Goals don’t do anything. Habits do.

If your 5 year goal is to write a book, your daily task is not “write a book.” That’s not a task, that’s a mood.

Your daily task is:

• Write for 20 mins
• Finish one page
• Edit what you wrote yesterday
• Get one chapter’s worth of notes down

Small enough that you can still do it on a bad day is the entire trick, because bad days are most of them.

And while you’re picking habits to add, pick one to drop, and write down what’s replacing it. You can’t just delete a habit, something moves into the empty slot, and it’s your phone. It’s always your phone.

Step 5: Review Your Plan Every Month

Here’s the part almost everyone skips.

They make the plan…

Then never look at it again.

Don’t do that.

At the end of every month, ask yourself:

• What’s working?
• What isn’t?
• What did I accomplish?
• What’s my next priority?
• Does anything need adjusting?

Remember…

Changing your plan isn’t failing.

Ignoring it is.

Make Planning Easy With This FREE Printable Journal

If you’re anything like me, it’s much easier to stay motivated when everything is organised in one place.

That’s why I created this FREE Printable 5-Year Planning Journal.

Inside you’ll find:

• Values and priorities pages, including a table where you score all 8 areas of your life twice, once for how happy you are with it and once for how much it matters, and the biggest gap between those two numbers is basically your plan handing itself to you
• Vision pages, the big brain-dump one plus a box for every life area, then your 3 to 5 headline goals with a why for each
• All 5 years mapped out, each with a theme, 3 milestones, and a page for who you have to become that year
• Quarterly pages for Q1 to Q4, with a how-will-I-know-I’ve-done-it column, obstacles, and the end of quarter check-in
• Habit pages, keystone habits, daily non-negotiables, habits to build, habits to release and what replaces them
• Reflection prompts, the annual review, a midpoint check-in at year 2.5, and 8 more for whenever you’re stuck
• A commitments page you sign and date, because signing things works on us and I don’t make the rules
• A Note To Future Me letter page. You seal it and don’t open it for 5 years.

👉 Grab your free 5 Year Planning Journal here

Your plan does not have to be good

It has to exist. That’s the bar, and it’s low on purpose.

Your goals will change, you’ll go off some of them entirely, and one thing on there will turn out to matter way more than you thought when you wrote it. All fine, all normal.

The next 5 years are coming either way. You’re just deciding whether you get a say in them.

So print it, do the first page tonight while your dinner’s in the oven, and put it somewhere you’ll trip over it. Not a drawer.