How to Plan Your Next Move
What goals really are and how to get there
Figuring out what to do with your life the coming years is a complex and hard task, but something everyone should do. What parameters should you optimize and when? Let me propose three: Credibility, Personal Growth, and Opportunity Liquidity.
Credibility
Education, titles at work, accreditation, medals, or exits for startups are all ways to show that you are a credible person. In a sense, they are the badges of Personal Growth, but we all have to jump through a lot of (unnecessary?) hoops and rings of fire to get them.
Few people are not 10x more amazing the week after they graduate from Stanford, get hired by Google, or get acquired, but that is (sadly) how society views you.
There are other paths to learning that might grow you more. Accreditation is partly proof of skill but partly earned by you showing that you can do what you are told, focus, and learn semi-meaningless things for a long time.
With the world of MOOCs, open-source, and startups, it is probably easier to learn how to become a great programmer by avoiding higher education altogether. But, few would prefer to meet a “self-taught surgeon,” so accreditation is certainly more than a signal value in some professions.
The problem is, that even if you don’t play the game, everyone else does. That forces you to at least play it partly.
Personal Growth
Personal Growth is touted left, right, and center, and I can admit that it has been my north star metric for years. When I look at opportunities and potential future, I have often chosen the one with the best personal growth potential.
One of the reasons we talk about Personal Growth a lot more is that it has been democratized through information and technology: MOOCs, online forums, podcasts, and so on. Make sure you participate and don’t trust an education system designed more than 100 years ago to make you happy.
I find Personal Growth the goal and Credibility is something we do for others. This means that if you can get the former without wasting time on the latter: You win.
Opportunity Liquidity
We rarely talk about Opportunity Liquidity — and partly, that is why I’m writing this post — how easy it is for you to change what to focus on and (partly) your identity.
When you go to uni to become a doctor, you sign up to get Credibility, but at the cost of needing to say no to almost everything else for 5–7 years — your options decrease.
When you found a company and raise money, you are “locked up” till you run out of money, leave in an ungraceful manner, or get acquired.
When you become a parent, it gets harder to travel, or change jobs or join random festivals in the desert.
(As a comment: opportunity cost is the pain/price to leave at any point, opportunity liquidy is how many things you can choose from at any time.)
Not overdoing it
I think Opportunity Liquidy is underrated, but also creates a lot of anxiety and FOMO. We are always distracted by the gnawing sense of not being at the optimal place right now — and that the grass is greener somewhere. We need to dedicate ourselves and focus — and ignore other opportunities — to be able to get anywhere, but I think the best way is to set a time box.
I like the mental model of “Swimming with Sharks.” If you would fall into the sea where there are a lot of sharks (yikes!!) the best is probably to switch between 5% planning (breaststrokes where you can see where you are going) and 95% swimming like a mad-person. In life, that would mean — spend a week every year considering where you are and what you do — and what you want to change. And, the rest of the year: focus.
I do a day around Xmas, a couple of days off during the summer, and a random dinner & chat with coaches here and there.
So — what should I do?!
Education and students optimize for Credibility when they often should be optimizing for Opportunity Liquidity and Personal Growth. When you are young, you have no idea what you want to do or what goal you will have later so focus on finding out.
Opportunity Liquidity and Personal Growth comes from applying yourself to different tasks and groups, exposing yourself to various problems and experiences, and reflecting upon these.
To summarize: Find a way to be able get in front of new problems, views, and people — as often as possible.
Great methods are, for example, pet projects, a year abroad, summer camps, internships, traveling, a sabbatical, starting a startup young, joining a movement, and volunteering.
Reading great books like Daring Greatly, Obstacle is the Way, and Finite and Infinite Games extend your skills and make you see yourself and life in new ways.
I also like doing personality tests like Enneagram, Bartle’s Four Players Types, Magic The Gathering Colors, or Myers-Briggs.
None of these methods, books, or tests will tell you who you are, but they are great ways of getting some input upon which to reflect. It is vital to remember that you are not a label or a group. (It is the biggest lie in the Harry Potter-universe, that a hat can tell you who you really are — when it is in fact the hat that makes you be that person.)
Still, I would recommend you to play with roles, identities, and tasks to figure out what you are good at, like, and where you can bring value to others. Don’t go where everyone tells you to, or what everyone else does, but allow yourself to try things.
When crystallized intelligence, community, and purpose feel more important
The older you get, the more you might have to realize that all three metrics might feel too selfish and focused on you as an autonomous individual. You might start to value being wise, being the elder, and being part of something bigger than yourself.
There are many great books to read when this itch is coming along; The Second Mountain, Why Buddhism is True, and Wisdom at Work. You can read them at any age, but I would save them for your thirties.
