How do you see yourself ten years from now?

This comparison between 2009 and 2019 at social media encouraged me to do some reflection about my achievements. I spent some time to see how I am now and how I was ten years ago. And most important, how I am now and how I want to be ten years from now.

To some people, this kind of reflection might be something to be proud of. To a few people, this might mean nothing as they're at same as they were ten years ago. But, to other people, this might be a motive of great frustration due to some lost or some regression.

The fact is that on our daily tasks we caught ourselves living impulsively not considering a more significant objective or purpose. The problem is that if we take too long to have this perception, there is a risk of being awarded great frustration when looking behind.

But, enough reflection for today. This article's objective is to talk about the next ten years from a planning perspective. I want to encourage you to have a life project, no matter if it is professional, personal or social. Having a project helps you to define an objective, define the required resources to achieve it and how and when you'll make it.

Here follow a few tips that can help you create, execute and accomplish your life project:

1 - Define an objective

Also known as a scope, it means where you want to go and what will be the obtained result after all the done effort.

Define tangible objectives that add value and also are reachable. If you miss one of these characteristics there is a chance of your project fails.

Start with small objectives and define bigger objectives as you achieve them.

2 - Define effort and resources needed

Find out what's gonna take to reach your goal. It might be financial resources, material resources, human resources, intellectual resources and etc. It might be a personal effort, third-party effort, manual effort, mechanical effort, digital and etc. Make sure you have all you need to continue your journey towards your objective timely.

If any resource or effort needed to achieve your objective is not available, your project stops, and for that, you'll have to plan it again. The lack of resources and efforts can even make your project unviable.

Be aware so your resources don't become an objective in smaller projects, but if so, do what you have to do.

3 - Project deadline

Any project must have a deadline, and its execution needs to be sliced in tasks. Define a deadline for your project and also a start and delivery date to the smaller tasks. Remember that tasks consume resources and demand effort, and besides that, they can be predecessors or successors to other tasks with a dependency level between them.

To know how what and when to do things is indispensable to the project's success. It's in the execution of smaller tasks within the given time that you'll have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

The project may be delayed or anticipated. What can not happen is give away the objective promptly due to time. If a project is delivered too late, its purpose might not be as valuable as it was on project's start.

4 - Enumerate risk and action plans

Any project is subject to risks, no matter if the risks are an internal or external agent or if they are known or unknown issues. It might be resource unavailability, unforeseen events, objective changes, etc. The fact is that you'll have to enumerate as many risks as you can and establish an action plan for each one in case they become a reality.

As you establish risks, see the impact that may be caused by each one. Some risks have a minimum impact on your project. Some risks cause a problem but they can be mitigated, but there are risks that can make your project unviable.

5 - Write down everything

There is no problem at all in projecting something to your life on your mind only, but surely the action of writing down in a paper, document or sheet makes it formal and externalize your purpose, making you deal with it in a different manner.

Give emphasis to victories and small deliveries, take note of your problems and learn with them. Check if you aren't leaving the path set at the beginning of the project and be persistent. There are some projects that are problematic ones and they demand a lot of you.

Make your project, execute it and deliver something to yourself that used to be virtually impossible to reach before. You will be surprised rather with the achievement or the learned lesson.

Are you weird?

A lot of our unique weirdness is exactly what were shamed the most for when we were children.

Definitely, in my childhood, I looked at how I was weird. I was like, "Wow this is a terrible curse." I actually experienced pain for my uniqueness. It's human nature.

Like, "Ow that hurt, I expressed my weirdness, I got rejected, I will not do that again." So we posture ourselves away from rejection towards what? Approval.
So what do you have to do to get someone's approval? Please them. What you have to do to please a person? Typically act like them.

The most pervasive disease that inflicts humanity is the disease of being normal. I don't think that anybody's ever achieved an extraordinary life in terms of quality and success by excelling at normalcy. 

Think of someone that you really admire. It might be a celebrity. It might be someone in your personal life. It doesn't matter. Just think of someone you really admire. I almost can guarantee there is something weird about this person, or else you wouldn't have ever noticed them, and therefore you wouldn't be admiring them.

What I used to call a curse, I'm like, "Wow! This is actually a beautiful gift." Is a shift f perspective. In order to express your inner genius that is your weirdness, I do believe you have to be willing to risk uncertainty and vulnerability. It has to be a challenge to be expressed. It has to be a challenge to find it, or else it won't have meaning.

I dream of a world where we can express yourself, experience yourself, and embody the unique creativity of your own being. It might just seem that expressing weirdness on your life could be the worst thing you could ever do, and it might be, but what if its one of the things you could ever do to yourself?

Think out of the box. Don't be afraid to be weird, to be different from others. There is nothing wrong in moving toward your dreams in your own way, in your own time.

What if the great minds of our history had deprived themselves of being weird? Imagine how could have happened.

We're all weird in certain ways. Some are ashamed of it, some are not. As much as some people don't like to take risks, there are people that deprive themselves of expressing their ideas because they're afraid of being weird.


Those who take risks have either chance of loose or win. Those who express themselves have the chance of being rejected or being brilliant. It is your call!