Purpose kicks planning in the ass
A young person asked me the other day how far in advance she should plan for the future.
It is a difficult one when we consider the following....
=> Between your early '20s and early '30s you will become a significantly different person - one reason why young marriages are less likely to last
=> The world is changing faster than ever before and in the next 10 years could be so different that even the best futurists would do well to predict it. Jobs and industries will disappear and new ones will replace them that we could never have anticipated and of course AI will play its part in this
So how long? If not 10 years, 5 years, 3 years?
Or reframe it - HAVE A PURPOSE NOT A PLAN
Having a purpose or a personal mission statement allows you to focus on what is authentically you and not to be defined by an industry or profession. And it's possible to have more than one, but I wouldn't advise having more than three. You can then hang your goals from those missions, but keep them flexible and revisit them often.
Don't yet know what your purpose is? Ask yourself what sparks your curiosity and pursue it intrinsically. Turn curiosity into action. Seek as many novel experiences as possible. Meet new people. This way you'll soon find out what you're passionate about and experiences you acquire will serve you well in the future even if you don't get to use them straight away.
Steve Jobs' is a classic example of this - he talked about "connecting the dots" at his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. By connecting the dots backwards rather than forwards, you will only have a view in the future about how clearly unrelated experiences helped you become the person you are today.
Jobs famously dropped out of Reed College but "dropped in" on a calligraphy class purely out of interest. It was only ten years later, that knowledge of typefaces and fonts allowed Apple to create beautiful typography which became a hallmark of the first Mac.
The best way to learn is from experience, especially failures. Just don’t dwell on the failures too long and know when it is time to move on, again by following your intuition.
The bottom-line is DON'T SPEND TOO LONG ON THE SIDELINES PLANNING otherwise by the time you strike the target will already have moved.
