Q: Describe your ideal life five years from now. Describe it in as much detail as possible. Describe where you would live, what you would do each day, what job you’d have, who you’d spend your time with, what you’d spend your time doing.
Take your time and be as specific as possible.
Keep in mind, anything is possible with this exercise. We’re fantasizing here. Doesn’t matter how possible you feel this life is or isn’t, write it down.
A: I’d be living with my partner in a nice, rustic but homey 2-bedroom apartment. We’d have a lovely king-sized bed with fluffy pillows stuffed with down. A large wardrobe, no make it a walk-in closet where our clothes are on 2 sides of the closet. I’d have 5 pairs of really comfortable shoes all of which I’d use regularly: 1 sandals, 1 exercise shoes, 1 high heels for events, 1 work shoe, and 1 “smart casual” sandals.
We’d convert the small bedroom into an office for my partner. I’d either work from a work desk in the master bedroom (facing a window overlooking trees), or from a working corner in the living room or the kitchen/dining table. I’d have a comfortable office chair and a desk that’s large enough to accommodate my sleek Dell laptop and stacks of papers and books. I’d be working primarily from home, but occasionally in cafés and co-working space areas for a change of scene. My work would involve writing primarily. I’d be blogging consistently and making money from it. I’d spend 15-20% of my working hours translating subtitles. I’ll be translating subtitles for the cinema (the big Hollywood movies) and major content platforms.
1-2 times a week I’d do a physical activity that I really enjoy with a personal trainer, not gymming. Potentially kick-boxing but maybe something else that I’ll have discovered I really enjoy. I’d be going on long morning walks 2-3 times a week, so we must be living in a country where the climate facilitates that.
A typical morning would be me waking up next to my partner, smelling his hair and beard, and going to the kitchen to make coffee. I’ll switch on a podcast and have a leisurely morning coffee (I’ll wait for my partner to wake up to eat breakfast together). Then I’ll meditate for 10-20 minutes depending on my mood. By that time I’ll be meditating on my own, with no need for Andy from Headspace.
Every day I will dedicate 30-60 minutes to reading, maybe in the morning or after lunch. Oh, yes. I’ll be reading the Economist in the morning with my coffee: the Espresso and 1-2 articles from Economist Today. But I also want to do other reading both fiction and non-fiction, maybe at the end of the day after work.
My work day will start and finish early so I have the evenings free to spend with my partner. On evenings when he’s not working, we’ll go out for dinners and movies and drinks. Sometimes we’ll have evenings in where we watch movies from our comfortable couch and I’ll probably fall asleep on his tummy. Some evenings we’ll drink a good beer/wine and have long discussions about life.
In terms of the city we live in, it’s got to be a city where I can get around on foot and public transport. I don’t want to drive. It could be warm or cold, as long as it’s still feasible to walk. It will have a strong café culture and sometimes I’ll spend hours in a café people watching or reading. The coffee must be nice and strong, not like those milky Australian flat whites. I will have 3-4 close friends who I’ll go out with regularly. We’ll have Friday drinks together and sometimes lunches during the week. These will be caring, intellectually curious people who have a broad variety of experiences and offer a different life perspective from mine and aren’t afraid to question/challenge me.
I’ll buy all my clothes from 1 shop though I probably won’t be buying any because I’ll still be using all my old clothes. I’ll be slim (52-54kg) and healthy. I will exercise regularly (my long walks and that 1 undiscovered activity). I will eat healthily (will still be calorie counting, but with an increased calorie count to 1.5k a day) but with rare binges. I will enjoy my food and my wine and beers.
My partner and I will be able to take 2 long holidays a year. We’ll spend Christmas at his parents’. We will go to beaches and cultural cities and enjoy each other’s company. I will be earning at least $3,000 every month and have no money worries. I’ll save 15% of that in a bank and invest 30-40% in a diverse portfolio. I will have done my Masters in Psychology.
I will be grinding my own beans for making coffee, making my own French press, Moka pot and cold brew. I’ll cook 1-2 days a week for myself and my partner and I’ll expand my cooking skills. We’ll have a nice big kitchen with lots of countertop for prep space. We’ll have a breakfast counter with stools. We will have veeeery strong Internet. There will be a gym and a swimming pool on premise which I’ll occasionally use when I can’t go on my long walks e.g. if it’s raining. I’ll have a stable daily schedule of when I do what though this is flexible. My partner and I will go on short trips for long weekends, even just weekend trips to the countryside. I will fly home to visit mom and dad every 3-4 months, and also see my Thai friends.
Revelations from my ideal life
You’ve just read my ideal life in five years, lightly edited for confidentiality, from three years ago. At the time, I had just secured a dream job I’d never imagined was within reach—research, write, and edit for a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose writing I loved. I was living at my parents’ in Thailand, a few months into a Covid-enforced separation from my partner, in the dark as to how I could join him in Vietnam whose border was solidly shut.
Getting the job was a life-changing moment. I felt it was a good time to look ahead and set goals, hence the thought exercise.
Writing down my ideal life was clarifying. It confirmed what I already knew deep down but had never verbalised: my ideal life was a simple life with my partner. That really was all I wanted. The distance had never been a problem for our relationship, but what I truly wanted was to wake up next to him every morning, fall asleep on his soft shoulder every night.
I had several activities competing for attention at the time: blogging, teaching, subtitles translation, spending time with my parents, and now my dream job. My search for a way to move to Vietnam had up to then been futile, and I had gotten into a habit of putting it on the back burner. The thought exercise was a wake-up call. The move was what mattered most to me, and so the search should be my top priority.
The other major revelation from my five-year ideal life was a surprising one. I’d always seen myself as am ambitious person. I’d thought I’d want to wildly succeed in whichever field I worked in. But when it came to visualising my “ideal” life, all I wanted professionally was to write, and make money from my writing. There were no grand ambitions of my long-planned memoir becoming a mega bestseller, no dreams of fame and fortune. All I wanted was to write for a living, in whatever shape or form that would take.
Three years later…
I normally have a bunch of newsletter ideas in my back pocket, ready to be plucked and polished for the next issue. But the well had run dry this week and I spent days grasping at straws for a post that felt right.
Then I remembered this five-year ideal life exercise, and here we are. I thought it would be a good question for you to ask yourself, whichever life stage you’re in. And also useful for me to reflect on how far I’ve come to making that ideal life a reality.
Three years later, I live with my partner in a two-bedroom. I wake up next to him every morning. We enjoy each other’s company most evenings. We spent last Christmas at his parents’. I’ve found a physical activity I enjoy (surprisingly it turned out to be gymming). My long walk is to my gym 2-3 times a week. I’ve got a couple of close friends I meet regularly. I write for work. I have my own newsletter. I grind my own beans for the French press. We cook 1-2 times a week. We spent last weekend in a forest.
In many ways, I’m living that ideal life. But not all. I spend far less than 15% of my working hours translating subtitles, and I’m no closer to seeing my words on the big screen. My meditation practice, though I no longer need Andy from Headspace, has become sporadic. I’ve stopped reading The Economist, and do not read daily. I’ve abandoned my plan to do a Masters in Psychology. We do not have strong Internet. I don’t fly home every 3-4 months. The shoes I have are not the five I imagined.
Comparing that ideal life on paper and this life I’m living, I see priorities that haven’t changed—my partner, writing, exercise—and those that have—subtitles, meditation, studying a Masters. But my life has largely moved in the direction I’d envisioned for myself, and that’s reassuring to see.
What do you think?
This thought exercise gave me clarity on what mattered as I sat down to write my answer, and checking in a few years later revealed how that’s changed over time. That’s a lot of value for an activity that takes 20 minutes, and so I encourage you to give it a go:
What is your ideal life in five years?
Once you’ve written your answer down, you can choose to share some (or all) of it with me by hitting “reply” (if you only want me to see it) or leaving a comment (if you don’t mind sharing with other Val Thinks readers)—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. Even better, share this with someone who could use an answer to this question. Maybe they’re feeling a bit lost or disheartened. Visualising their ideal life could guide and motivate them, as it did me.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
p.s. Full disclosure: This thought exercise was taken from my boss’ “Build a Better Life” course. If you’d like more exercises that guide you toward a better life, you can subscribe for this course and eight others here.
Photo by The Travel Nook on Unsplash