A writer may relate with that line. But you may be something else... an engineer, a YouTuber or a nurse.
Yet the underlying situation remains the same: A gap exists between you and the fulfillment of your desire.
It may seem obvious when stated but the "gap" often seems that way—a gap. An empty space between you and where you would like to be. But to look again is to see that the gap is anything but empty. It is filled with problems.
For the writer in front of a blank page, and who feels a long way from pages filled with words that convey the right ideas, the recommendation to resolve the battle that ensues from the demand of the blank page is often simple: Write anything. (Because it closes the first gap. The problem of inertia.)
For you, who may not be a writer, but have aspirations stoking longings for fulfillment, the recommendation may be just as simple: Do anything.
But to accept the idea to 'do anything' is to run into your first problem. "Anything" is so large. It is often the case that to follow the instruction to do anything is to find yourself doing nothing. 'Write anything' works for the writer because a page filled with the right ideas is where the writer wants to be and writing is the very thing that will deliver a page filled with the right ideas.
The lesson to draw is, to close the gap—at least the first gap—between you and where you want to be, you are to do the thing that will take you closer to where you want to be. The recommendation to do anything becomes useful when tweaked to become targeted. And it is often the case that an iteration like 'do anything that will take you closer to where you want to be' tends to deliver better clarity and progress.
Lack of clarity sits at the helm of maintaining the gap between you and fulfillment of your desires. The series of problems that make up the gap often remain cloaked in a kind of fog.
It is the reason you often hear to set goals. At the heart of the advice to set goals is the call to clarify the action needed to deliver the fruition of your desire.
For the writer, it's write.
For you, the YouTuber, for example, who might not know where to begin, the starting point is to clarify the action that make you a YouTuber.
You'll find that, as you take stock of your situation, to come upon unfulfilled desires or aspirations is to come upon aspirations with ill-defined goals.
Take as examples the 'goal' to "Get a better job" or "Become a successful YouTuber" or "Have 5.0 CGPA". To wake up every morning to any of these as a goal is to risk waking up every morning with a sense of failure pre-loaded into your day. An aspiration is not a goal and to operate with an aspiration as goal is to operate with a sense that you are or might be failing at something. That being said, there is usefulness to be derived from defining what is meant by 'goal'.
Think of a goal is a captured action-oriented description of your aspiration. 'Pick Samsung phone and submit CV to companies on LinkedIn the first time in a day I sit at my work desk to get a better job offer' is closer to what a goal is than 'Get a better job'. While both descriptions orient you towards what to do only one shows you what to do.
What to do implies action and action implies enactment of behaviour.
It is the identification, enactment (and re-enactment as the case may be) of behaviours that gives rise to the accomplishment of goals.
Another way to think about 'a goal' is by bringing to mind one of the most popular conception of a goal, found in the sport of football (or what some might call soccer).
The description is simple: Kick a ball through the (goal) post of the opponent, as many times as you can before the time runs out, to win the football game.
Here is a breakdown:
- To win the football game isn't the goal. It is the aspiration.
- To kick the ball through the post isn't the goal. it is the action.
- Even the (goal) post isn't the goal. It is the target.[1]
To describe a goal well is to deliver an opportunity for success to be felt—even when aspirations remain unmet—because success lies not at the aspiration, but in your engagement with the prescription that is your goal.
What proponents of setting goals might omit is, swaths of time, as well as lots of iterations to the descriptions of goals you come up with, might be required before you come upon workable ones.
At moments when clarity is low, the specificity demanded by goal-setting is best kept relaxed and your navigation becomes informed by broad directional ideas that serve not as targets or goals but as guides to determine action.[2] As the guide is used to enact actions to close gaps encountered, targets emerge and goals can become set to anchor behaviour towards the accomplishment of particular outcomes.
The process of determining is the engine of solving problems—closing the gap that separates you from where you would like to be. It is often the case that directing time effort and attention to this process is what turns the wheels of progress.
All this may sound a bit philosophical, and you might be interested in what it looks like in practice. So, here is how you might apply it:
- List out (and maintain a list of) problems.
- Anything that presents as a gap between what is and what you want/ought to be qualifies as a problem.
- Having a repository of unresolved problems reduces the cognitive load that comes with carrying unresolved problems around.
- Use the list to populate another list that holds problems that keep coming to mind over and over again
- You can call this lists "Tasks disturbing me" or whatever resonates.
- For each problem, as applicable, drill down to attain steps you can act upon using notes.
- Some problems will have straight forward solutions.
- Others problem may require unpacking to deliver actions.
- Do the action-steps attained and notice the results.
- If the action-steps resolves the problem, mission accomplished.
- If the action-steps resolves the problem but requires re-enactment to keep the problem at bay, you have yourself a target to meet as goals with the repeated re-enactment of the action-steps.
- If the action-steps do not resolve the problem, repeat item 3 of this list-documenting learnings and the shifts that may change the situation.
Whether it's the agony stirred by a blank page waiting to be filled, or the dissatisfaction of not uploading videos to your YouTube channel, or the dread of falling short of a 5.0 GPA, the space between you and your desired end is filled with problems. Directing attention and effort to identifying those problems clearly sets you on the path to solving them.
Notes
- An argument can be made that the goal-post is both the goal and the target. But the fact that we only erupt in celebration when the ball passes through the post reveals something deeper: a goal is not the post itself—it is the consequence of an action meeting its intended target.
- CGP Grey refers to the guides as themes: Broad, directional words (or string of words) that resonates with you and serve to navigate you at an area.
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