Where do you want to be in 3 years?
 

I have two thoughts with this post:

1. Where do you want to be in 3 years? and,

2. How does one answer this question in a work setting?


Personally, I want my wife, my kids, and I to be living in the same city with good jobs for the both of us. Right now, my wife and kids are living in another state.

Professionally, I want to run the research wing of a non-profit, perhaps the non-profit where I am currently working. I'm qualified. I just haven't had enough time working outside of academia.

My concern is: How do answer that question in an interview or when asked by a boss when the answer is: "I want your job or an equivalent job at another employer"?

Working in a job that I don't just consider cool and fun now, but that I would think is cool and fun as a 12 year old. I'd also like to live with a wonderful lady and maybe even be talking kids again. I'd like to have finally fixed the garage, which is about one storm away from collapsing. Oh, and I'd like to have even more friends.
I'd omit about half of that, especially the garage part, and add on bullshit about how excited I was about working for the company. I've never met an interviewer that was looking for honesty, even for good jobs.

I pretty much want to be exactly where I am. In school, working towards my career, with my great girlfriend. The only things id want different is A) more knowledge, and B) A pet. Cat, or dog, or bunny, or guinea pig, Something more than my 2 goldfish.

Well, I don't have a job or career right now. I'm a student, working towards a career. So in 3 years I'd like to be IN the Social Work program, working towards my degree.

Where do I wanna be in 3 years? Balls deep in a stripper.

In an work setting? Balls deep in a stripper's ass.

1: In three years I'm striving either to be in professional school and in some sort of serious relationship thinking about kids, or touring the world with my band and gradually building up a harem of young beautiful women.

2: In three years my goal is to be working in a job that I find interesting, and that provides satisfactory opportunity for advancement and personal growth, etc. etc.

In a much better place than I am now. Whatever that is.

Three years from now I want to have a job I'm happy with, be with a woman I can be happy with, and either getting ready to buy a house or just having bought a house.

In three years, I want to be in a classroom, preferably at the front and not behind a desk or the lectern, but kneeling beside a student, helping them to learn about the beginnings of our nation. So basically, I want to be teaching humanities in an 8th grade classroom here in Oregon.

I also want to be happily married and saving up for a house while paying down my student loan debt.

How do I answer that question in a work setting? Well, that is easy enough for me. Most of the jobs I am applying for would love to hear that answer.

I met some friends of my parents this weekend, and heard an interesting story. Apparently, the lady of the couple interviewed for an intern position at her company many years ago, and told the division head that interviewed her that in 20 years, she saw herself in his job. She retired out of that job a couple months ago. Her husband tracked the man down as he had long since retired himself, and informed him that she had done just what she had said she would do. He sent her a card that said something to the effect of--well, that's why I hired her!

So sometimes, saying that you want your boss's job pays off.

I want to be retired, living in the Caribbean.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans for the future.

....alive.

if im alive then all is well.

Dear god, lottery tickets please. Tix or you don't exist.
Thnx.

Makes your restaurant sound a little less appealing.

That's the rhetoric of a person content with mediocrity. We are what we do.

...

Me in 3 years? Heh, I'll be so gone my username will have a frickin' 'd on the end of it.

In 3 years, I would like the house renovations finished, have reduced my debt significantly and lowered my golf handicap.

Work? I'm happy enough. I'm really not very mercenary about climbing corporate ladders, plus you can't beat the 4 step commute of working from home :)

So you're claiming to me that you're right on track with your life's plans then.

I am. Not everybody gets takes a bite of the shit sandwich of life and gags.

"Embrace the suck." "I like the way this sucks." "I wish it would suck more!"

Priorities, lady. Sometimes you have to step over bodies to get there.

Trim the fat from your life, stop making excuses, take that first big step.

...

Attitude is everything. We are what we do.

I didn't realize you planned on that divorce, for starters. :o

None of my lifelong plans have worked out. That doesn't mean they worked out for the negative. They just haven't taken place. I was supposed to be married with a child by 23. I'm 34. I can't even take care of myself, let alone a child lol. Hell, the dog's even behind on his vaccinations.

Just saying, future plans for life are fun to make, but rarely do they work out as you'd hoped.

In answering the questions,..breathing and breathing. I've had my share of health problems to the point that my thinking is second to second let alone day to day.

3 years,..that's an eternity. For me anyways, life is now.

I didn't let it slow me down. My priority at the time (and still) is to get my degree and secure my next career. If I lost the less-than-a-year wife and my still-being-built house in the mix... no loss. It was integrity testing and that part of my life failed to meet the standards. Better that it went earlier than later, right? You just keep rolling. I can bitch and moan and cry my eyes out in my TFP blog, but I don't let it slow me down in real life. No time.

In three years? I want to be doing this same job but for a bigger company with more pay. Onwards and upwards.

As for what you should say in an interview. Don't lie. When I am interviewing prospective employees I like to see that they have ambition. That said, if you are qualified enough to be doing your boss's job, you probably shouldn't be applying for the lesser job. I wouldn't hire you if you were overqualified as it is usually an indication that you will not be around for very long (i.e. you will jump at the first opportunity to take a better job). That said, if you don't yet have the qualifications for the higher level job but are qualified for the one that you are applying... great! Tell me you want to be moving up in three to five years.

alive...

Retired, living a life of ease, with the kids then old enough that I can actually travel a bit, or split my time between town and the lake.

If I'm still working (an option, but becoming less attractive every day), I'll be running a division or function for a SMB (no desire to be CEO... CFO is enough of a headache and I won't do that again).

Amen dude. Keep moving

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

I know full well that life rarely turns out as planned, but I do know that sometimes, the unplanned stuff will really get you after all. If everything in my life had gone as planned (when I was 18 and silly), I would have graduated on time from university, and never met my sweetie.

My current where I want to be is more a set of realistic goals that I am working towards. Yes, I am getting married--this summer. So it isn't ridiculous to say that, nor is it ridiculous to say that I will be a teacher. I have all of the dates lined up on my calendar for all of the tests I have to take next fall. I am planning to make these things happen.

What is ridiculous is when someone is 18 and says, "I want to be married by 23" where there is no boyfriend or fiance in the picture. And yes, I talked like that once upon a time, and I overhear girls in my major talk like that all the time (WHY did I have to pick the one major with girls looking to get their Mrs.?!).

It's not a bad thing to have goals, else you are just floating aimlessly through life, with no particular direction. I'll pass, thanks.

for me, in three years i hope to have continued moving ahead in all the areas that interest me, making new things, figuring out how to be more efficient at getting them out into the world.
i have a couple of Plans, but i'm not sure how long it'll take to come to fruitition, or if it will, but it's a kinda fun plan so i don't mind moving through the processes that it leans on.


at the level of grander schemes, things work or they don't.
you can build toward stuff, have plans, but things either will or won't happen and sometimes it's in your control and sometimes it's not.
either way, where you are at any given point is within processes so it's better that you find more of them rather than fewer of them interesting and/or engaging.

In three years I hope to be living in Paris, with a balcony.
Im just waiting for my boss to retire.

My perspective on this question is different than most of you since I'm further along the road of life.

As I'm getting closer to retirement from my work/profession I hope that in 3 years I'll still be on as good of a path as I am now. That way my transition from normal daily work to post retirement will be happy and smooth. I won't have a problem finding things to do once I'm not in "work" most days like I am now but I hope to have the time, resources, and good health to actually do them.

So far so good.

I have no idea how old you are, but this is how girls of my era thought way back when. The kicker is most of them succeeded at marriage and a baby at a young age. And I didn't. BUT, they are on their 2nd divorce by now, at least lol. Bitter much? You bet your ass (except for the divorces lol.)

I've made lots of healthy plans in my lifetime thus far. Followed by poor choices, which I accept full responsibility for. I'm in therapy for this and my habits / addictions. I get through my days by the skin of my teeth. I think it's cute how younger folks make big plans for their futures, like they're going to live happily every after. I want to pinch their cheeks and wish them luck.

My motto - expect the worst, but always hope for the best. It's been working for me since 2001.

I can't find a link, but there was a study showing that college graduates who had plans and goals were substantially more successful than those who didn't. That, of course, is just one example of the value of plans. When people set goals and make plans, it's not because they expect everything to go perfectly, but those goals help them get back on track more quickly when things do go unexpectedly. The only time planning is a negative is if you're one of those people who is so rigid and uptight that they have a nervous breakdown when things don't go perfectly. That has less to do with the plan, though, and more to do with the person.

Back to the OP, I'd like to be in some sort of graduate program in 3 years... actually, maybe almost finished with one, depending on when I get started. Another option is to be working at the DNC, where I have a few contacts, or the UN, where I need to get some contacts.

3 Year Goals

Personal Life:

I will have a 3 1/2 year long relationship still going strong.
I will have, at least, a two bedroom house.
I will have a driver's license, a VW bug (old off-road style) for leisure driving, and have a Honda Element for business/band driving.
I will have a band that, at least, gigs regularly, and has, at least, 30 quality songs and two EP's under its belt.
I will have a recording studio in the second room of my house.
I will not be an alcoholic.

Professional Life:

I will be a team leader.
I will make, at least, $150,000/year.

Disclaimer: These goals are subject to change, due to circumstantial adaptation, at any point over the next three years.
__________

This is where I feel I can and will be right now. In a year my mind may have changed, or circumstances beyond my control may make these impossible. At least I have a detailed set of goals to help keep me on track, though. Without them, what control do I have over my own life?

@smeth, stop this nonsense and run for mayor goddamnit!

In a word, happy.

That's all I really want.

I just wrote a novel, but deleted it.

I'll just say I hope to be happy in 3 years. That's what 'successful' means to me. :o

You people that put "happy" as your goal for yourself in three years are really aimin' for the stars, aren't ya?

While this entry is primarily an exercise in Dr. Phil Feelgood Fu, it's also a useful thermometer for gauging ambition.

Have you nothing to say other than you want to feel a fleeting emotion that could be associated with oral sex or new shoes?

It's weird. From what I've read (and I've read a lot), one can achieve happiness when one achieves success, but one only achieves success by reaching a worthy ideal.

And once that happens, you have to strive for another ideal. Success isn't something you get; it's a state, and as with any state, you have to work at it to maintain it.

You reap what you sow. You can't be happy unless you're successful, and you can't get there until you put the work into it. It's like when people say, "I'll be successful when I'm rich." Well, no...you'll be rich when you're successful, and when you're successful, you can live by your own definition of rich.

Now if only I could put that into practice. Oh, hey, that's where I want to be in 3 years.

I want to have clear goals and to be working toward them. I want to be in a state of mind where putting in the work is something I do even if I don't feel like it. I want to control my impulses toward immediate gratification by keeping my eye on the prize of lasting change and success.

I want to bear in mind that goals need not be rigid and cast in stone; they simply need to be. Solid goals are S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-specific.

If you don't write down your goals and review them regularly, they aren't goals...they're merely dreams.

Emotions running high atm!

Post deleted. :o

Sometimes it seems we have a fair bit in common Baraka. Note, my "goals" above are still somewhat nebulous. I recognize the value of goals, but I do have a difficult time setting them and persistently working toward them.

I really like that S.M.A.R.T. acronym. I'm gonna write that down.

Yeah, each of these points is important. If you are weak on any one of them, or if it's nonexistent, it becomes that much more difficult to achieve something. For your benefit, and for the benefit of the thread, here is an example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal:

To increase my annual income to $50,000 by the end of 2011 by taking an extra 2 or 3 hours each week to attend courses/workshops/seminars, read books/magazines/journals, and otherwise increase my level of skills and knowledge related to my industry.

Here is the same thing translated into a dream:

I want to make $50,000 a year.

Or worse:

I want to make more money.

You are the fucking man. :lol:

Where would I like to be in 3 years? On a secluded tropical beach, getting laid. Job-wise? Living off my lottery ticket.

In 3 years I hope to be finishing up a master's degree in public health with either a job lined up or a PhD program lined up. I hope that the research I'm working on now will have been published. And also that a wealthy patron has elected to pay off my undergrad student loans.

Thanks for this extra information on how to write out a S.M.A.R.T. goal. I am going to work on getting my goals into this format. I have already to some extent--given that I have to go to grad school to do what I want to do, I have a lot of hoops to jump through: three exams to sit, a comprehensive application to submit, letters of recommendation to acquire. Laying out all of my deadlines, and what I have to do in order to accomplish this goal, has been very helpful in making it more real and attainable.

I want to be right here in Charlotte, living in the same apartment, but I want my roommate to have his own place nearby. I want to be working the same job, still loving it. I need/want a motorcycle to replace my scooter--being my only source of transportation, it's not always reliable due to scooters and their starting issues in cold weather. Want to start taking better care of myself.. a really, really healthy diet instead of this minimal eating of 'meh' foods.. 6 months ago this question would be a lot easier to answer.. I just moved into my own place and shortly thereafter lost my job, took a month to find a new one, lost my savings to sustain myself, my transmission went out, I was going through a major bulimic relapse, the apt looked like shit, had no money to get gear for my new job, everything was falling apart, was doing steroids hard.. yeah, I was miserable. Now, I'm almost completely independent, got me a blackberry :D, got a scooter (in the shop, but it's mine), sold that POS car, got internet, a couch, decent TV, keeping the place and myself clean.. most importantly, got out of that bad habit, cut back on the juice, and.. above all.. rekindled my relationship with God.

Most of all, I want a son and a pug. I'm considering adopting a toddler who needs a home as soon as I reach that point, but it's still difficult for me working the night-shift security at a strip club. I make between 215 and 290 per week right now, plus occasional 'tips' and 'fees', but when I become registered for Armed security with this company I'm with currently, I'll be pulling in about 400 per week. What I make now is more than enough to take care of me, but my kid is going to eat well, get everything he needs, including health insurance, and I'd like to actually get him the things he wants from time to time. I don't want to just 'give him what he wants' by any means, I intend to raise him like I raised my little bros. However, I was gracious to them, and I would like to invest in quality items that he can enjoy besides the TV and computer. A bicycle (with a helmet), basketball, etc. Stuff I don't see any kids appreciating at all these days.

Sometimes I dream about taking care of my own child, and the compassion I feel for this person is enough to make me cry when I wake up and realize it's not real.

Aside from that, I'm happy right where I am, aside from this damn arthritis [at 20 years old? Come on >:(.. ]. Just want someone to share my life with, and I really don't need or want a woman in my life.

In 3 years, I'd like be getting ready for a wedding.

Professionally, I'd like to be working in either a plastic surgeon's office or in a hospital around here somewhere. I'm in school for my BSN.

Continuing to build relationships in the theatre community to the point of being able to pick and choose my projects.

Additionally , I'd like to land a teaching job to provide some steady income.

If not teaching, SOMETHING that's steady. In 3 years, my kids will be in 4th and 1st grade respectively, giving me a good chunk of the day to do something with myself.

And it should go without saying that I hope for health and happiness for my family and friends

Not living in the DC Metro area. Too bad that's not gonna happen.

In 3 years I would like to be employed! >_<

Back in Cape Town with my (soon to be) wife, living near the beach with a couple of dogs.

Working in the same industry I'm in now, except employed permanently rather than this contract shit I'm doing now.

I want to sail around the Caribbean (at least in the winter months here).

I am currently trying to figure out these questions. Where do I want to be, what lifestyle do I want, what do I need to buy, how do I make enough money to be able to do whatever I want?

I am actually exactly where I wanted to be when I did this 5 years ago, and it is a pretty stable life.