Ask and you shall receive...email!
After I spent a half-hour journaling this morning about where I want to be in ten years, the novelist M.J. Rose emailed me about her experiences with five-year plans (see yesterday's post):

As for your five year plan. I have tried it twice.

First time failed miserably, second time succeeded but only three weeks before the end date. I think the trick with a five year plan is to be flexible and reevaluate it all the time.
Meaning - first time I said I'd get published in five years but never stopped to check on how I was doing or if I needed to change the way I was going about it. Next time I did it, I not only said I'd get published in five years but I set out a year by year plan of what had to happen each year so that I'd get to the end.

And be prepared to scrap the way you are going about reaching the goal half way through. With my second try I realized that trying to get published the way I'd read about and the way the industry usually worked was not going to work and so year three I took a new direction. Year five I got the original goal. But the way I got there was like flying from Boston, via China, to get to New York.

Cheers,
M.J.

Thanks, M.J.! Once I thought about her advice, I rushed over to her website, to try to find out how she got published that was not the way she'd read about or how these things usually work.

After receiving some intriguing rejections, she decided to self-publish her first novel online and rally 'round some strategic internet marketing techniques. The rest, as they say, is history. I love it!!!

Anybody else want to share your experiences with five-year or ten-year plans? How about trying it right now and then email your thoughts?

More about the Naughty Nannies
Rats! I hear Ken at the door, expecting that hot meal which is not ready. I'll give you the whole scoop and my take on it tomorrow.