How many times has someone asked you where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Maybe it’s an interview question or just a relative you haven’t seen in a while. And there are generally two types of responses. One is agony over scrambling for words. That person gives some vague description about how well their career and education will go, their positions of leadership and their familial life.
The other person provides a highly thought out and detailed answer. They’ve got a full road map to what they want to achieve during that time period, how they’ll do it and what they hope to get out of it. It’s so crystal clear, it almost seems as if the next 5 years of their life is perfectly comfortable and set in stone. What could go wrong for them? Our education system and society values the second person. But the truth is that having a highly detailed image of where you are five years from now is wholly irrelevant.
Because no one can know who you will become five years from now.
The Illusion of Permanence
Let me ask you two simple questions. What is your favorite band/singer? That should be an easy one. Now what was your favorite band/singer 10 years ago? Think about it to make sure. The fact that they could be different is irrelevant to me.
Now two more questions. How much would you pay to see a concert five years from now of your current favorite band? Write it down. I’m serious, keep the number somewhere. And how much would you pay to see a concert now of your favorite band? Write that down too.
If you would pay equal or more for your favorite band from 10 years ago (assuming they’re different) versus your favorite band today, I want to you to e-mail me a picture of those bands and prices and explain why you chose them. I’ll venmo you $5.
But the truth is, it’s very likely that’s not what happened. What is more likely is that you would be willing to pay much more for the future concert based on your current preferences than the present concert based on your past preferences. The reason I know this is because this exact same study was done on a large group of participants. And they found that people were willing to pay, on average, $129 for their current favorite band but only $80 for their old favorite band. Just as expected.
We recognize how much we’ve changed in the past 10 years, yet don’t believe we will change 10 years from now.
With Time Comes Change
If you had asked me 5 years ago where I would be today, I’d tell you I’d likely be at UC Davis studying biology to become a doctor. I had a very vague conception at the time. But here I am now at Berkeley studying Computer Science, a completely different field. And in fact, studies show that about 3/4ths of people don’t have jobs related to their college major. So who knows where I’ll be 5 years from today?
We know that the greatest personality changes occur around 18 through one’s 20s. Yet it is quite ironic that it is people around these ages that we put the most pressure on for planning their future. The truth is that these individuals are the most likely to change their long-term plans as they themselves change.
David Epstein brings this research to the discussion in his book Range. He sees this through the lens of “match quality”, a term used by economists to refer to the fit between someone and their job. The truth is that this fit often moves over time because of the inherent nature of our own changes. So how do we account for these radical shifts in our personalities?
We have to focus on today itself.
The Short-Term Strategy
In a study of successful individuals from different industries, Harvard found that virtually all interviewed had taken nontraditional paths. The analysis was dubbed the “Dark Horse” project because nearly every participant believed they were an anomaly compared to their peers. In actuality, it was the norm to not follow what consider to be “normal” paths.
Ogas, who headed the project, told Epstein about one interesting commonality between the dark horses. They all employed short-term thinking. They focused on what is the “best match right now?” and didn’t worry about falling behind others. They were looking for match quality.
Even those who seemed like visionaries often went through their journey with short-term planning. Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, for example said he wasn’t much for “setting goals”, but looked to fail to learn and adapt as quickly as possible.
Ogas believed that we fall into the trap of the “standardization covenant” where we find stability in a foreseen path for our careers and lives. But in reality, we have to go through an arduous process of self-discovery before committing to something.
Look Forward, Now
“We are works in progress claiming to be finished,” in the words of psychologist Dan Gilbert. We should never assume that who are now is what we will always be. Instead of projecting a goal and reverse-engineering a path, look at your current opportunities and interests to project your own path forward. There you can find your optimal match quality.
If you’d like to read Range by David Epstein yourself, an interesting work into how diverse experiences benefit innovators more than early specialization, you can find it through my affiliate link here.
