Agency is focusing on the end result you want, not the potential or actual obstacles to that result.
When you think of a potential goal, it’s easy to think of all the reasons why it will be hard or even impossible to get to that goal.
— You don’t know how to get started.
— You will have to give up something you like doing today.
— You can think of a lot of ways it will be hard.
— You might have to do things that will make people not like you e.g. if you are training for a marathon, you will have to socialize less to make time for your training runs.
There are an infinite number of obstacles, both real and imagined, that will prevent you from achieving that goal. So you never get started.
Or you can turn it around (invert, always invert), and ask “what would have to be true for me to succeed at this goal?”
You start with what would have to happen and you trust yourself to figure out the rest. You don’t know the whole path to your goal at the start, and you start anyway by taking the first step.
This actually came up in a discussion about parenting. I have three kids, including a 5 month old baby despite me being 50 years old. And a lot of people have asked me: “won’t that be hard? How do you make it work?” and right now, since we are traveling, “how do you travel internationally with three young kids?”
There is no secret. You just decide to do it, and then you figure out what needs to happen. And you accept that sometimes it’s hard.
And I realized that’s a lot of what agency is. You decide on the result you want first, and then you figure out how to make it happen. You don’t look at the ways in which it will be hard, and you don’t ruminate about what you don’t know. You just move forward and take action with the objective in mind.
— If you want to run a marathon, start running – don’t spend months picking a training plan.
— If you want to write a book, start writing – don’t spend months crafting a book proposal or selecting an agent.
— If you want to become an executive, pay attention to what successful executives do and emulate those behaviors.
That being said, you have to be committed enough to your objective that you will keep trying different tactics when you’re not getting the results you want. Hint: you are more likely to stay committed when you actually enjoy something about the necessary activities.
What’s something you want to do but have been putting off? What’s one step you could take today to move towards that goal?