Do you actually need the whole five-year plan?
I ask almost every client this, and it stops them every single time.
Because most of us are sitting on some decision — the career change, the business idea, the thing we've been quietly turning over for way too long — and we're waiting until we can see the whole staircase before we'll take step one. Guess what? you're never gonna see the whole staircase. It doesn't exist yet. Nobody's does.
So we wait. And wait. And nothing moves.
The plan is just a really convincing guess
I think about this constantly with the parents I coach, because they all want the five-year plan before they'll make a five-minute decision, and honestly, I totally get it — a plan feels safe. But a plan is really just a guess wearing a very cute outfit.
And if you’re wondering “what actually moves people”, it’s actually one decision, one question: “Can I do this right now, today, this one thing?”
And after that, you go ahead and do the thing, and you have no idea where it leads. You genuinely cannot see it from where you're standing. You don't find out how it all connects until way later, looking back, going "oh. Okay. I see it now."
In the moment it just feels like breadcrumbs. One step, then the next one, then the next one. Like just picking up what's right in front of you.
You don't have to boil the ocean
You literally don’t, you don't even need to know what year three looks like. You need to know what today looks like, and whether you're actually going to do the thing or keep talking yourself out of it.
I'll be honest, this is way easier to say than to live. I've got clients who are so ready for the next chapter and still stuck on step one, because step one doesn't feel like enough. It is enough. It's the only step that's actually yours to take right now.
So here's my real question for you: what's the one decision sitting in front of you that you keep pushing off because you're waiting to feel more ready? You're not going to feel more ready. Ready shows up after you move, not before.
Want more of this?
This week's guest, Dr. Sarah Harbottle, lived exactly this. She left a seven-year law career to go back to school at 32 with zero plan for how it would actually work out — and no idea it would mean three of her four kids arriving mid-degree. All she had was just the next decision, over and over, for six and a half years. Today she's a practicing naturopathic doctor, a lawyer, and head of product at Maris Dae, and she'll tell you herself none of it was predictable from where she started.
