177: How Do You Move Forward When You Don’t Have an End Goal?

The Slide Puzzle Approach: Moving Forward Without Knowing Your Endpoint

A virtual client asked me something recently that stopped me in my tracks: how do I move forward when I don’t have a direction, when I don’t even know my endpoint? It immediately brought to mind the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice asks which road to take. The cat asks where she wants to go. She says she doesn’t know. The cat replies that then it really doesn’t matter which way she goes.

I’ve always loved that exchange, though I’ll admit it’s a bit of a monkey-brain question at heart. Fish brains are pretty used to swimming around without a clear endpoint already. My client’s brain, though, was doing the opposite: jumping way ahead. This room could become a beautiful dressing area, but what about the desk that also needs to live somewhere, but the lighting isn’t right for an office, and what if setting it up that way leads to regret later? I had to gently pull her back and ask what her immediate need actually was right now, letting everything further down the road wait its turn.

The slide puzzle

A member of my free community offered a description that’s stuck with me since: this process feels less like dominoes and more like those old sliding tile puzzles, a grid of little squares with one empty space, where you slide pieces around one at a time until a picture emerges. Sometimes you know exactly what picture you’re building toward. Other times you’re just trying to get matching pieces near each other and figure out the picture as you go. Either way, there’s often a specific anchor piece, once it clicks into its correct spot, everything else starts falling into place around it.

This is exactly what’s happening with my client’s closet project. Her clothes had overtaken two closets, two clothing racks, a dresser, and the floor around it, when the goal is for two closets and one dresser to hold everything comfortably. Getting there means sliding things through a side room, and now the basement is filling up too, because there are simply a lot of moving pieces before anything permanent can land. If you live with monkey brains, or even other fish brains, this phase can look baffling from the outside: why are you moving that over there instead of just putting it away? Because “away” is currently full of something else that needs to move first.

Alice and the cat had it partly right

It genuinely doesn’t matter which direction you start in if you don’t know your final destination yet, because you learn what you actually need as you go. What my client needed wasn’t a fully mapped plan, she needed one visible win. So we cleared one closet completely, vacuumed it, dusted it, made it feel brand new, and moved in only the items she’d already sorted and was completely certain she loved. That’s the anchor square sliding into its spot. Everything else starts to clarify from there.

Three real gifts of not knowing where you’re going

First, it leaves you open to creativity and possibility. I’ve walked into countless homes where someone insists something has to work a certain way simply because that’s how it’s “supposed” to be, and the moment I suggest an alternative, they light up like they’d been waiting for permission to do it differently. Not having a fixed endpoint keeps that door open.

Second, it makes you far less afraid to problem-solve when a plan falls apart. Even the most skilled, plan-everything-in-advance organizers occasionally measure, purchase, and design a perfect system, only to hit a snag that blows the whole plan up, forcing them to disassemble everything and start piecing it back together. Building comfort with adjusting mid-process isn’t a weakness, it’s a genuinely useful skill.

Third, remember that this “end” was never meant to be permanent anyway. The room my client is building isn’t a forever, untouchable finished product. She’ll acquire new clothes, release old favorites, maybe turn the space into an office someday and later decide against it, or need to accommodate a new pet down the road. Life keeps shifting, so the goal was never to get it perfectly right once and for all. It’s to fit your immediate needs as well as you can right now.

Your practical, actionable step

If you’re stuck because you can’t see the whole finished picture yet, stop waiting for that clarity. Pick one small, contained piece, one shelf, one drawer, one closet, clear it completely, and fill it only with what you’re already certain you want there. Let that one anchored piece show you what comes next.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.