You Do Not Have to Know Where You Are Going to Take the Next Step

We have been sold a version of forward motion that requires a destination.

You have to know where you are going before you start. You have to have the plan, the vision, the five-year picture. You have to be able to explain it to someone at a dinner party without them looking confused. The destination first, then the steps. That is the model we were handed.

But that is not actually how most of the important things in our lives have worked. The relationship we did not plan for. The work that found us instead of the other way around. The version of ourselves that emerged not because we engineered it but because we kept showing up and one day we looked up and there she was.

The I don't know does not mean you are standing still. It means you are moving without a map, which is a different thing entirely and is, honestly, sometimes the braver thing.

Forward is a direction. It is not a destination. You do not need to know where you are going to know that you are not going back. And not going back is enough of a direction to take the next step.

You do not have to see the whole road. You just have to see the next step. And then the one after that. That is not a consolation prize version of moving forward. That is actually what moving forward looks like for most of us most of the time, and anyone who tells you otherwise has either been very lucky or is not telling the whole truth.

Come find us at thereturningproject.com

Inward. Onward. Go.