by Marie Forleo
“Make more money” might become “Increase my net worth by paying off my credit card debt over the next eighteen months.”
“Fix my marriage” might become “Interview at least three couples’ therapists and read that Getting the Love You Want book within six weeks.” (FYI, that book is magic.)
“Get sober” might become “Get to an AA meeting today.”
“Be a great author” might become “Write for thirty minutes a day and finish a first draft of my book by Christmas.”
State your dream in a way that you or anyone else could measure. This forces you to chunk your dream down and make it unmistakably actionable. The point here isn’t to map out every single step. Instead, use simple, clear baby steps. They’ll help cultivate a set of mental, emotional, and behavioral disciplines, which the following chapters address.
STEP 5: DETERMINE YOUR NEXT THREE STEPS AND GET STARTED NOW
The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart
What are three simple actions you can take to get closer to that eventual goal of figuring it out? What could you do in ten minutes or less, the first of which could be done right now? Focus on small, active steps like making a phone call, setting up an appointment, sending an email, doing a push-up, or registering for a class. While I’m all for research, it’s often an easy way to procrastinate and stay in your comfort zone. If you must research something, how can you make that research more hands-on? Instead of reading an article, find someone to talk with who’s done what you want to do. Rather than watching an online tutorial, sign up for a local class. This isn’t always possible, but train yourself to move toward discomfort. Put yourself in situations that feel scary and intimidating—that’s where the figureoutable magic is!
As you’ll discover in the next chapter, you must bypass your tendency to say, “Hold on a sec, I’m not quite ready yet.”
No matter what, take that first action step today. I’m talking right NOW. Bookmark this page and go do your first step. Then add step two and three into your calendar, too.
I’ll wait.
Because as the saying goes, someday is not a day of the week.
A WORD TO THE WISE: FOCUS ONLY ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL
You can control two things: your work ethic and your attitude about anything.
Ali Krieger
This simple idea is critical to your success.
Always direct the lion’s share of your attention, energy, and effort to what you can control, not what you can’t. Here’s what’s always in your control: your words, actions, behavior, attitude, perspective, focus, effort, and energy. You’re also in control of how you respond to events and circumstances as they occur, whether you like them or not.
Here’s what’s never within your control: other people and their words, actions, behavior, attitude, perspective, focus, effort, and energy. You also can’t control the weather, acts of God, or natural laws that govern our existence (e.g., gravity).
Let’s say your dream involves securing a new job. While you’re not able to make someone hire you (that’s out of your control), the most crucial factors that determine your success are 100 percent within your control. Just a few include:
How often and how many positions you apply for
Making your résumé as competitive as possible
Getting referrals and letters of recommendation
Strengthening your interview skills
The depth of the research and preparation you do on the company, team, and position
How you show up, including punctuality, energy, attitude, and communication skills
How effectively you demonstrate the value you’ll bring to the company
Thank-you notes, timely communication, and proper follow-up
Whether you ask for feedback to learn and improve
Whether you get better or bitter with each challenge or rejection
Whether you consider remote work or moving to a new location
The persistence to keep growing and going until you find a position
At some point, all dreams require cooperation, buy-in, or at the very least harmonious interactions with others. Make a lifelong commitment to cultivating social intelligence. That includes learnable disciplines like the art of persuasion, influence, marketing, and sales—even if you don’t think you need those skills. Because you do. Each of those are meaty and deep areas of study, with volumes of existing literature just waiting to be devoured. While you can’t change or control others, you can ethically and masterfully learn how to communicate in a way that increases your chances of getting a yes.
From this moment forward, no matter what you’re figuring out, focus on what you can control, not what you can’t. For bonus points, take a look at your dream and write your responses to the following questions:
What parts of this process are within my control?
What skills do I need to develop and master?
Your answers will provide endless inspiration for the next action steps.
DEFINE YOUR DREAM FAQS
Q: But what if I have many goals, dreams, and projects I want to accomplish this year?
A: That’s wonderful. Write them all down. To get the most benefit from this book, and to master the everything is figureoutable approach to life, it’s crucial that you focus on one primary goal. Choose the one that’s most pressing, inspiring, and important. The one you’re obsessed with. The one that causes the most pain, fear, or excitement. My intention is to get you results for life. For that to happen, you must develop discipline, focus, and a bias toward action. You must internalize the habits, perspectives, and mental models that get you to the figureoutable finish line. Choose one significant goal and slay that sucker. Then by all means: lather, rinse, and repeat.
Q: Is it okay that my dream doesn’t involve saving the polar bears or curing breast cancer? All I want is to make a ton of money and never work again.
A: Financial freedom is a glorious goal. It was on my list of things to figure out. I’m grateful I did. That said, a truly rich life comes from what we contribute. The folks I know who have generated real (not inherited) wealth center their lives on contributing to others. Not one wealthy, respected person I know spends their time sipping margaritas on the beach or making it rain at the club. They’re motivated, active, and constantly challenging themselves to learn more, do more, give more, and be more. They each generate and share tremendous goodness with the world through their jobs, businesses, friendships, creative expressions, and philanthropic endeavors. So by all means, get that coin. Just know that you’ll be superrich—in every sense of the word—when you make life about what you can give, not what you can get.
One final note in this vein. Never, ever forget that everyone struggles. I mean everyone. My career has afforded me a front row seat to some of the most creative, accomplished people on the planet. Regardless of wealth, fame, or perceived power, every single individual is fighting their own private battles. We all have our vulnerabilities and insecurities. Money is wonderful. But it doesn’t solve all problems. Humans need meaningful projects to work on. We need strong, loving relationships. We need a reason to get up in the morning. We need to connect and contribute. Otherwise, we get destructive. Don’t believe me? Read up on the nightmare lives and suicides of lottery winners. Then check out how many retirees die soon after they stop working, or get so bored and depressed that they reenter the workforce.
Q: What if my dream isn’t big, epic, or long-term? Is it all right if it’s fairly small?
A: Size is subjective. An epic dream for one person might be child’s play for someone else. We all have different skills and appetites for achievement in life. Despite popular opinion, big dreams aren’t
necessarily better dreams.
First, big dreams can be paralyzing and counterproductive, particularly when our confidence has taken a hit. Or when we’re crushed under the weight of extraordinary physical, psychological, or emotional pain. The wins from microdreams like getting out of bed, going for a daily walk, or even calling a friend can make the difference between life and death. There’s nothing small about that.
We humans thrive off of progress. We’re motivated by momentum. I always chunk larger goals down into more immediately achievable projects. Right now, I’m focused on finishing just this chapter, not the entire book. So stack up those small wins. That’s how all big things get done. Starting small doesn’t mean thinking small.
This next point is rarely, if ever, considered. Artificially forcing yourself to commit to a big long-term goal can be counterproductive. Perhaps what you’re destined to do or become in the next three, five, or ten years doesn’t even exist yet! (See chapter 8: Progress Not Perfection, for more on my experience with this.) So attempting to envision a huge goal and then locking yourself into that path might be the worst thing you could do. Trying will only produce tears and frustration, making you feel like a visionless loser. Instead of shoehorning yourself into a long-term dream, shift your lens. Think short-term. Get hyperfocused on an important, modest dream that’s immediately in front of you. Whether that’s mastering a new technique in Photoshop, cleaning the garage, securing a second part-time job, getting back to the gym, writing your first short story, or anything else—achieving what’s pressing in your life right now will help you develop focus, discipline, and confidence. More often than not, conquering small, immediate goals builds momentum and confidence for big tasks down the road.
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of honoring your unique dreams. You were encoded with irreplaceable genius, born from unrepeatable chemistry, which includes the size and scope of your dreams. There is no one-size-fits-all. Your journey is unlike anyone else’s. If signing up for a bird-watching class at your community college is the dream that lights you up, DO IT. Whatever sets your heart on fire and makes you come alive, that’s what you should focus on. Right now, your soul is screaming to be heard. Its role is to guide the unfolding of your life. Listen to it. Follow your quirky inclinations, no matter how obscure or insignificant they seem.
Q: What if my dream is so big it’s paralyzing? What if I freeze up when I think about the scale?
A: If solving world hunger or ending gender inequality is among your dreams, I commend you. You’re one of the primary reasons I wrote this book. We need the full activation and diversity of skills, talents, and perspectives to make these big changes happen. At first blush, monumental dreams seem impossibly out of reach. But if we start where we are and with what we have, they’re actually more possible than you’d think. That’s how all great historic transformation has ever come about. We must also accept that sweeping cultural change happens in stages. We may not cross the ultimate finish line in our lifetime, but that doesn’t mean we won’t make tremendous progress and positively impact countless lives along the way. For example, pioneering feminist thinker Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Yet it wasn’t until 1920, a whopping 128 years later, when some US women won the right to vote. And it wasn’t until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act fully protected Black Americans.
Fast-forward to 1970. Take a look at some of the US laws still on the books:
Employers in most states could legally fire a woman for being pregnant.
Banks could require a woman applying for credit to have her husband cosign.
In twelve states, husbands could not be prosecuted for raping their wives.
Mind-boggling, right? At the time of this writing we’re well into the twenty-first century and we’re still fighting for equal pay. That doesn’t mean Mary’s work wasn’t effective. Even though Mary didn’t “figure out” gender equality in her lifetime, her work was a vital and important piece of the puzzle. She helped pave the way for the generations of women who came after.
Regarding some of our most painful collective problems, figuring out solutions is about the long game. If a moonshot goal is in your heart, start where you are. As Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
You don’t have to save the world tomorrow. Start by making a difference to just one person today. Then make a difference to another. Then another. Everything in this book is applicable to you. Stop waiting. Start now.
Q: What if nothing seems that inspiring, exciting, or important? What if I just don’t know what I want?
A: If you’re dream anemic (and some people are), the following exercise will help you figure out what you really want. Plus, you’ll understand why you haven’t been getting it. It’s intense and eye-opening. It requires seven days of written work, approximately ten to fifteen minutes per day. I highly recommend completing this written exercise by hand.
Begin writing, “What I really want is . . . ,” and then keep writing until you fill the page. As many times as you need to, reuse the prompt “What I really want is . . .” and keep writing. Don’t edit or censor yourself. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Once you’ve filled the page, you’re done for the day. Don’t reread it yet.
Repeat this on a fresh sheet of paper for the next six days. On the seventh day, read all of the pages you’ve written and circle what’s most repeated. Next, on a fresh sheet of paper, write “EVERYTHING IS FIGUREOUTABLE” at the top. Then, underneath, take the most repeated item and finish the following prompts:
I really want __________ [fill in the blank with your most repeated item] because . . . [fill in why this is important to you]
When I figure this out, I’ll feel . . . [describe the emotions you’ll feel]
The reason I believe I haven’t been able to figure this out before is . . .
Truthfully, what I haven’t been willing to do in order to figure this out is . . .
Now what I’m willing to do to figure this out is . . .
Once you’re done, finish up the page by writing this line:
See, [insert your first name], everything is figureoutable.
Complete this exercise with an honest, open heart. You will not only know what you really want but also how to start figuring it out.
Whew! You did it.
If you’ve completed the exercises with your full effort (or are in the process of doing it), well done! You’re on your way to mastering the figureoutable philosophy. But if you just thought about your answers or half-assed any of this, STOP.
Go back.
Do the work.
Grab a damn piece of paper and start writing, now.
(Plus, you’ll need that one clear dream for what’s coming next: a simple but effective strategy to fast-track your results.)
Figureoutable Field Notes
Instead of settling for the status quo, this couple figured out how to split their time between London and New Zealand.
We are Paul and Kim, a husband and wife from New Zealand who live in London—literally the other side of the world from home! After seven years in our new home and LOVING life, we became more conscious of being so far away from family—especially aging and unwell parents, friends, siblings, nieces, nephews, and godchildren.
We thought we had only two choices:
Give up our life, careers, apartment, and community in London, and move back to New Zealand permanently. (Nooooo!)
Use all our holiday allowance and savings to go back to New Zealand each year to visit. (But what’s the point of living in London if you can’t use some of your holidays to travel Europe?! And does once per year really cut it when you need real, quality time with your family?)
The ch
allenge: How could we create a life (and job!) with location freedom so that we could spend more time in New Zealand, without sacrificing everything we’d built in London?
We experimented with option two and used all our holiday allowance and savings to spend a month visiting home. It was stressful and a little soul destroying. On a car journey between cities, we had a long, deep, emotional chat about our life. We didn’t want to move back to NZ permanently, but living and working in London wasn’t sustainable either.
That’s when we had a brainwave! What if we started our own business?! We could combine our skills, work from anywhere, and spend more time together as a result!
We were in the car, driving up the southern motorway in Auckland, when I signed up for B-School on my phone! We experimented with two businesses, one for each of us, before we realized that selling products we loved wasn’t enough to make a successful business. Other people have to love them, too.
Our quote of the year was “Everything is figureoutable.” Whenever we felt lost or defeated, it’s what we would say to each other to pick ourselves up and keep going. Eventually, we worked out that two separate projects were dividing our energy. We needed to combine forces.
But it’s one thing to be married for seventeen years and another to work successfully as colleagues. So we did the thing we’d been avoiding—proper market research. In doing that, we realized that actually, we were quite good at it. It perfectly combined our skills.
So, voilà, our business: helping entrepreneurs uncover customer insights. A year later, we have a small business with location freedom. We’re writing this from sunny New Zealand, where we’re spending three months with family and friends while working remotely with clients in four countries.