Yesterday I had the pleasure of conducting mock interviews of law students in preparation for the upcoming interview season. They were eager and well-prepared, looking out at the endless possibilities that lay ahead if them. I asked them where they saw themselves five years after graduation, and I answered their questions about my job, including what had led me to it, what I loved about it, and what, if anything, I might change.
When I was in their position ten years ago, I hated the “where do you see yourself in x years?” question. I had no real vision for my future. I guess I figured if I followed all the recommended steps — work hard, get good grades, network, get a good job at a big firm — everything would fall into place and I’d end up with the life I was supposed to have, whatever that was. I really didn’t know enough about the world or myself to know what I wanted my life to look like. I could recite answers to interview questions, but the visions I described were really other peoples’ ideas of what a good life and career looked like.
It’s so easy to have our attention and desires directed by others — family, friends, media, societal expectations. It takes work to tune it all out and listen to that quiet inner voice instead. We owe it to ourselves to turn down the noise, select our own priorities, and imagine all that we could be — it’s the only way to create our best lives and become the best versions of ourselves.
On the ride home last evening, I began writing about what my ideal self and life would look like. Following the advice in a life coaching book, I described in the present tense my dreams for myself in various areas of my life (e.g., body, relationship, career, time, spirituality, money, etc.). While this kind of visualization exercise is commonly prescribed in certain settings, I am pretty sure this is the first time I’ve done it.
I was honestly a little surprised at how easily some of the statements poured out of me. Maybe I have a better sense of what I want than I thought I did. In some areas, my descriptions matched my current reality — it seems that even without a dream or a plan, I’ve managed to craft a pretty great life in some respects. As for the areas that have room for improvement, seeing a positively worded, present-tense description of what I want was incredibly powerful. I felt lighter and more content just having written these dream scenarios. I think they will serve as a very helpful roadmap that will shape my daily behavior and choices if I keep revisiting them. It’s also really eye-opening to examine every sphere of my life at the same time, looking at myself as a whole rather than just thinking about how I might change one area or another. Our lives are not as compartmentalized as we may think, and true equilibrium requires balance in all spheres. (Note: What I’ve described above is an oversimplification of a very early exercise in the book, and I haven’t progressed beyond it to the other exercises yet. If you’d like to try this too, I suggest you read the book rather than relying on my description.)
I have no idea whether the students I met had really reflected on their ideal futures and visualized their dream lives, or if they, like younger me, just tried to come up with decent-sounding answers to predictable interview questions like “where do you see yourself in five years?”. I may be a little late to the game, but ten years after sitting in their seats, I’m glad that I’m finally starting to answer that question for myself.
Where do YOU see yourself in five years? Are you where you thought you’d be five years ago? What has helped to move you closer to your dream life?
Right before I retired from MECC, I was teaching a summer school class that combined the orientation class with an English class. I had fun working with the counselor as we thought of activities that would engage the students’ thoughts about the future, and how it related to their coming to college. One of the assignments that the counselor had them do was make a collage of what they wanted in the future. Since I was at a life crossroads myself, I made one too. It was a great exercise in thinking through what I really wanted, once my working life was over. I had fun finding pictures and dreaming about what I really wanted for the future. That collage has stayed on my refrigerator for almost 10 years now. I finally took it down because almost everything on it had been achieved. I wonder if I would have achieved them if I hadn’t done the activity. Would I have drifted from thing to thing, without any particular direction?