6 weeks, 6 months

Set checkpoints for your life and career

When is the last time you had a retrospective with yourself, where you set aside time to reflect on what’s working and what’s not? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Most people don’t. When you finally get into a groove and things become“good enough,” it’s easy to set the autopilot and coast. It’s not bad. It’s comfortable. The problems come when life is no longer “good enough.” How do you figure out what’s next?

You want to make choices before you’re forced to. You’re smart though. You know this. It’s easy to say, life doesn’t have clear warnings that a problem is brewing. Life doesn’t have a “check engine” light. If you wait until you sense a problem, you’re already in the first stage of an emergency. You’re already under pressure. In these situations humans are conditioned to make the best choices quickly out of a limited set of options. That’s a survival response. That’s not a plan.

Early life comes with frequent stops and restarts where change comes naturally. Schools and extracurricular activities begin and end, friends move in and out, and regular life milestones interrupt routine. Each interruption is a reset point. It gives a person the ability to change course with less risk. Sometimes change is unavoidable (i.e. puberty, adulthood), encouraged (i.e. college/moving out), or it occurs over a large audience all at once (graduations). Leaving this structure without a plan to replace it can quickly lead to stagnation. Years can go by without significant progress. There may still be relationships, breakups, layoffs, leases ending, and other events that interrupt routine but even those disappear over time.

Eventually all that is left is New Year’s eve when everyone tolerates the played-out cliché of resolving to fail for another year.

No one starts a job in order to quit

If you quit because you got recruited by another company, congratulations! That’s probably a step in the right direction, but it’s important to recognize you put your future into the hands of other people. You didn’t choose them, they chose you. That’s not a plan.

If you’re unhappy with your job and want to quit now, you’re already under stress. Whether literal or not, a countdown timer starts. You force yourself to make the best decision you can before you snap or get laid off.

Without regular interruptions, we rely on external catalysts like these to push us into difficult decisions. Whether these decisions are good or bad is irrelevant, it’s that delaying them wastes time and gives up control.

If you want control then you need a plan. You don’t need much. Mine is basic which is important for me. It only requires a calendar.

Start with a simple question.

Are you satisfied with the direction your life is headed?

Yes? Mark an event on your calendar six months from now.

No? Mark an event six weeks from now.

When you get to your next date, repeat the process.

If you’re happy, make a decision that will improve your life and keep doing what your doing for six months.

If you’re not happy, figure out something that you can do differently and commit to it for six weeks before reassessing.

If you have two or three “No” answers in a row, then your check engine light is on. You need to make a big decision, now. Draw up a plan, give yourself a timeline (two weeks is a good start), and make it your primary focus. Maybe it’s a proposal or a divorce. Maybe it’s quitting a job or changing major aspects of it. Maybe it’s getting braces or signing up for Jiu Jitsu.

The time frames help prevent me from giving up too early or making an impulsive decision due to temporary factors. It gives me a rhythm. If a once-in-a-lifetime opening shows up at your door then this cycle takes a back seat. This plan is meant to prevent stagnation, not to limit opportunity.

Whatever your choice is, it’s up to you. You will always wish you had made a decision earlier. Be sure to give yourself the chance.