Stop worrying about where you’re going

Just go

As a city-dwelling 20-something who has worked in finance, consulting and tech, there’s one topic that underscores a significant number of conversations with friends, colleagues, and mentors: the future. What are you going to do? Where are you going to go? What is your plan and how are you going to get there? All valid questions, all very hard to answer.

Perhaps it’s just generally accepted that planning ahead, knowing where you’re going — strategizing — leads to success, but talking about your plans has the opposite effect. Talking about what you’re going to do and publicizing your goals makes it less likely that you’ll actually accomplish those things:

Four different tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve them than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others. Once you’ve told people of your intentions, it gives you a “premature sense of completeness.” (Source)

Whoa, a “premature sense of completeness” sounds serious (and wrong). Are we giving ourselves instant early gratification by talking the talk? On the other hand, do we stress out too much if we venture into the future without having a plan and knowing where we’re going?

I’m a big proponent in just going, instead of worrying about where I end up. From travelling alone with an open mind to attending my first Hackathon on a whim, which led to starting my first company, just doing and going has led to intensely rich experiences, many of which I consider to be the highlights of my life. Doing is powerful and attracts attention from other people who are doers as well.

Last February, I was convinced by a friend to attend a hackathon in NYC being held by the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Office of Financial Empowerment. At the time, I was a beginner coder (even more so that I am now!) and didn’t think that I could contribute much, but went anyways because — why not? Turns out, the hackathon was part hacking together an application and part problem-solving session. I had a blast thinking about how to solve a real life problem and putting my limited coding skills to use. The result? We won first place, and that hackathon idea led to a contract, which led to the implementation of our product across NYC, and now is in the process of being offered to cities across the country. With no prior planning and a “let’s do it attitude”, I stumbled into a wonderful experience and possibly a sustainable startup venture (but more on that another day).

The same philosophy goes for writing as well. If you read the preamble, you know that I’m currently on day 7 of a challenge to write 1,000 words for 100 days. Prior to this challenge, I tried time and time again to start blogs and come up with interesting material. I would procrastinate on the writing, trying to come up with interesting material and picking the right fonts, themes, and pictures — and ultimately never get to the writing. None of those attempts even made it past a few posts, and certainly not to any fan fare. This time, I just started writing. Following Srinivas Rao’s suggestion of “putting my fingers to the keyboard”, I typed until I got to 1,000 words — it took an hour and a half, but I got there. Day 2 was also a struggle, but I just wrote on. By the third day, the words started coming a bit easier, and a dozen or so people read my post. Fast forward a few days, and my last post on travelling alone has garnered over 1,300 reads and a dozen tweets! For a person who a week ago had no writing presence and a small Twitter following, it blows my mind the impact that ‘just doing’ had.

“Do what you love” is a misunderstood statement. Most people interpret it as ‘figure out what you currently enjoy doing and try to get a job doing it’. Unfortunately for most of us, what we naturally enjoy doing are things like eating, sleeping, playing video games, listening to music, watching TV — things everyone love. If you can get a great job in one of those areas, you’re way ahead of everyone else. Tell me how you did it if you get the chance. The right way to interpret the phrase is “keep doing until you figure out what you love, and then do it as much as you can”. Interested in coding? Start learning today — there are tons of online resources to get you started. Want to try your hand at writing? Sign up for a Medium or Wordpress account and get started (try this challenge!). As you start doing, two things will happen:

1. You’ll figure out if you enjoy it or not. I’m not a runner. After spending many many years trying to pick up the habit, including forcing myself to participate in more than a dozen races, I know that I’ll never be a runner. And I’m ok with it — I’ve taken up golf instead.
2. You’ll get better at it. No doubt. Swing at 10,000 tennis balls and you’ll absolutely improve. Run 100 days in a row, and your stamina will grow considerably. Practice and building a habit will lead to improvement and getting better at something will make you enjoy it more. It’s true — do you remember the last time you practiced something and noticed yourself getting better? That feeling of accomplishment, that you made yourself into a better <blank>, is addictive.

When you figure out what it is in life that you enjoy doing, you’ll work harder than anyone else at it. You’ll put in that extra effort because you love the work, and for you it isn’t even considered ‘work’. I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite videos, by Alan Watts:

And after all, if you do really like what you are doing — it doesn’t really matter what it is — you can eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way of becoming the master of something, to be really with it. And then you will be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. (Source)

If you enjoyed this read, I’d love for you to ‘Recommend’ this piece so that others can enjoy it as well. If you’d like to discuss the true meaning of life, tweet me at @andrewjiang.