I believe in Stephen Covey’s principle “begin with the end in mind”. My short explanation of that principle: clarify the result you want, and act deliberately and consistently toward that result all along the way.

In hindsight, I can see I have tended to operate with a more restrictive principle than that. It’s something like “begin only when the desired result seems fairly certain, and the path from here to there is clear and predictable”. I started with “be deliberate” and unintentionally added “avoid surprises” to my mode of operation.

Because of my undeclared desire to avoid surprises I have often avoided starting down foggy paths. I knew the first few steps to take, but I didn’t know all the steps from here to success. Some examples: not creating a new employee position in my company because I couldn’t predict if it would work out, not seeking outside experts because I didn’t know how to find and evaluate them, or not starting experimental product development because I couldn’t forsee solutions to all of the design challenges. In all cases I knew the desired result, and I knew where to start, but in between was foggy. I was afraid of failure, and of the unknown.

It’s wise to plan ahead using all the information that’s available at the beginning. I think the lesson for me now is that even when a less-than-comfortable amount of information is available at the beginning, I’ll get more of the results I want by starting down the visible part of the path than by waiting for clarity and predictability from here to the destination.