Last year, my wife and I welcomed a new addition to our family. This year, we moved into a house that circumstance allowed us to buy in an area we had been eyeing as a place we can call home.

Last year I also started a new teaching position, while this year my wife started a new job she applied for three years prior.

We both agreed we’re not making any more (voluntary) life changes for (at least) the next 20 years.

It has been an exhausting road, but there is now time to breathe… just before the rush of the holidays. However, with so much to look forward to and being in a fortunate position to not have much to worry about now, it’s going to be an enjoyable one.

Ten years ago, the thought of planning a decade ahead was only somewhat in my periphery. Life has the ability to change things in an instant, but human perspective is also horrendous for long term thinking.

Let me rephrase: our perspective for thinking long term sucks.

That’s one of the main reasons businesses talk about quarters. Planning a business for the next twenty years is too insane to think about considering the pace of change, which is why so few attempt to do it.

Business is a bunch of hares looking for the results of the turtle.

For myself, I just kind of expected to be at a place and my “future self” would have figured it out at some point. Yes, that kind of happened, but present me is shaking a giant fist at past me. Things don’t happen automagically (it’s a new term I’m throwing around), but as the result of a long string of inter-connected decisions.

As I look towards the next twenty years, it’s time for a new approach:

Don’t aim for big goals.

Aim for tiny goals, just within reach at the time. Achieve one, then move on to the other.

There are hundreds of projects in the pipeline, from personal to professional, and it’s overwhelming to consider how to accomplish all of them. What I can do, however, is make a decision about one every day.

Over the course of twenty years, that’s over 7,000 tiny goals compounded on top of each other. If being consistent, that’s a future even better than I can envision.

As for my first decision:

Get back to the writing.