If you ask me where I want to be twenty years from now, I can give you some ideas. Maybe. But a plan? Not a chance. Twenty years ago, if you had asked me whether I would be doing what I do now, I would have laughed. I had no idea. So why do so many goal-setting frameworks insist that I start with a crystal-clear twenty-year vision?
It sounds responsible. It sounds purposeful. It also sounds terrifying.
Not too long ago I was asked to give a talk on goal-setting frameworks to a group called the Goals Alliance. The group’s tagline is “Design our future, live with purpose.” I love that. But I want to push on the word design. Designing your future is not daydreaming in la-la land. It is sitting right here, right now, and asking what the next small step looks like. Because the truth is, most of us cannot see twenty years ahead. We can barely see ninety days ahead, and even that is fuzzy.
The Fog Is Real
A few months ago, there was water damage at my house. I did not come into the office that day. I had to work from home and deal with the mess. I am pretty sure I will come into work tomorrow, but I do not know for a fact. Life has a way of reminding us that the only thing we control is what we do next.
That is why the twenty-year vision breaks so many people. It is so far out, and we have so little control over it, that we spend a week planning our future and never make a single decision. We call it planning. It is actually procrastination dressed up as productivity.
The frameworks that demand perfect clarity before action are asking us to do something impossible. How can I have clarity about something that sits two decades away?
Start With the Next Step
The theme of the Goals Alliance is “Design our future, live with purpose.” I would add that purpose is not one big thing. It shifts all day. When a parent is with their kids, their purpose is to be present. When someone is at work, their purpose is to do good work with good people. I do not have one purpose. I have many purposes, and they change depending on where I am and who I am with.
So when people get stuck because they cannot find their one true purpose, I tell them to stop looking. Do something. Try something. If you do not like it, do the next thing. Keep moving until you find the thing where time disappears. That is the signal. Do more of that.
This is also how clarity works. Clarity does not come from thinking harder. It comes from doing something and seeing what happens. Short-term wins matter for lifelong goals because the short term is tangible. What I do today and tomorrow is real. What I might do in twenty years is a guess.
Get the Car Moving
We may compare tracking to a GPS for your goals. That is a great image, but it misses the first step. If you do not know how to drive, a GPS will not help you. You have to get in the car and make it move.
That is your first milestone. Not the destination. Not the perfect route. Just get in the car, release the brake, and feel the thing roll forward. Once it is moving, you figure out the steering wheel. Then the brake. Then where you want to go.
There is a big mountain ahead, and it is foggy. I cannot see the summit. But I can see the next few feet in front of me. If I keep taking the next visible step, I make progress. The fog does not matter if I trust the next step.
This is Newton’s law for productivity. It is much easier to keep a moving object moving than to get a stationary object started. So the goal is not to plan the perfect launch. The goal is to launch.
You Can Always Turn Around
People worry about taking the wrong step. I used to worry about that too. Then I realized something. You cannot do a U-turn if you are not moving. A plane has to take off, climb, and then it can adjust its heading. It cannot course-correct while it is sitting at the gate.
So move. Take one step. If it is the wrong direction, turn around. The correction is part of the process, not a sign that you failed. The only real failure is sitting still because you are waiting for a vision that is too far away to see.
What I Do Instead
When I set goals, I look at the next ninety days. Ninety days is close enough that I can forecast it. It is far enough that I can make real progress. Inside those ninety days, I ask: what is the smallest action I can take today? Not the most impressive action. Not the action that will look good on a spreadsheet. The smallest action that gets the ball rolling.
Sometimes that action is five minutes on the thing you keep saying you will learn. Sometimes it is opening a document and writing one bad paragraph. Sometimes it is sending one email. The size does not matter. The movement does.
If you are staring at a twenty-year vision and feeling overwhelmed, try this. Put the twenty-year thing in a drawer. Pick something you can do in the next ninety days. Then pick something you can do today. Do that thing. Then look up and see what the next step looks like.
The future is not designed in a vision statement. It is designed one small step at a time, in the fog, with purpose.
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