I was at the chess table with one of my young guys last week. He’s sharp. He’d been studying openings all month, and you could tell. First ten moves, clean. Then somewhere in the middle of the game he looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
And I told him the truth. “You memorized moves. You never looked at the board.”
Man, if I’m being real with you, that’s not a chess problem. That’s the problem I see in almost every young person I work with. They’ve got goals. Good ones, sometimes. Make the team. Pass the class. Get the job. Save the money. But you ask them where all of it is going, what board they’re playing on, and the room gets quiet.
Let me get into this.
A Goal Is a Move
A goal is specific. It has a finish line. You either made the team or you didn’t. You either passed or you didn’t. Goals are good. I’m not here to talk you out of setting them. You need them the same way a chess player needs to know how the knight moves.
But here’s what nobody tells you. You can hit every goal you set and still end up somewhere you never wanted to be. I’ve watched grown men do it. Degree, job, car, all the boxes checked, and they’re sitting across from me at thirty-five asking, “How did I get here?” Every move made sense. The game still fell apart.
That’s what happens when you have goals without vision.
Vision Is the Board
Vision is different. Vision isn’t a finish line. It’s a picture of the kind of life you’re building and the kind of person you’re becoming while you build it. A goal asks, “What am I doing next?” Vision asks, “Who am I becoming, and is this move taking me there?”
I’m gonna say that again because I know somebody heard it but you missed it. A goal asks what you’re doing next. Vision asks who you’re becoming.
When my young guy was staring at that chess board, his problem wasn’t that he didn’t know any moves. He knew plenty. His problem was he had no picture of the position he was trying to create. So every move was just a reaction. And a life built out of reactions will keep you busy for decades and leave you empty at the end of it.
Why Nobody Taught You This
The reality is, most of the systems young people move through are built on goals, not vision. School gives you a syllabus. Sports give you a season. Even the adults who love you tend to ask goal questions. What college? What major? What job? Those are honest questions, but they’re move questions. Very few people sit with a sixteen-year-old and ask board questions. What kind of man do you want to be at twenty-five? What do you want people to feel when you walk in a room? What are you building that outlasts you?
And I’ll be honest, I didn’t ask myself those questions early either. I chased goals for years. Some I hit, some I missed. It took real work, and some real losses, before I learned to look at the whole board. It happens, man. But you don’t have to learn it as late as I did.
How to Start Seeing the Board
If you’re sixteen, nineteen, twenty-three, wherever you are, here’s what I’d tell you sitting across the table.
Start with one honest picture. Not a five-year plan. A picture. Close your eyes and see yourself five years out on a day you’d actually be proud of. Where do you wake up? Who’s around you? What did you do that day that mattered? Write it down in plain words. That’s the first draft of your vision, and it will be wrong in places. That’s fine. Vision gets refined the same way anything real does, through living.
Then take the goals you already have and hold them up against that picture. Some of your goals will line up. Keep those. Some of them will be moves that look good but take you nowhere you actually want to go. Those are the ones that need to change. That exercise right there, most people never do it. Not at sixteen, not at forty.
And if you’re a mentor or an educator reading this, your job isn’t to hand a young person your board. It’s to keep asking the questions that make them look at their own.
Where This Fits in the Work
This is exactly why vision is one of the six circles in our 6 Circles to Purpose leadership training. It sits after self-awareness and values on purpose, no pun intended. Because a vision built before you know who you are and what you stand for isn’t a vision. It’s a wish list. But when a young person knows themselves, knows their values, and then builds a picture of where they’re headed, the goals almost start setting themselves. The moves make sense because the board finally does.
So here’s my challenge to you this week. Write the picture. One page, one honest day in your future life. Then look at what you’re currently doing and ask the only question that matters: are my moves building that position?
Do not take time for granted. The board is in front of you right now.
Ready to go deeper? Explore 6 Circles to Purpose Leadership Training, or bring the program to your school or organization. Learn more about our programs.
JustINSPIRE Mentoring is a mentoring-based organization focused on helping youth, emerging leaders, and communities grow with clarity, confidence, discipline, purpose, and expression. Learn more at justinspirementoring.online
