Okay, Actually is a podcast for people who are working hard and starting to wonder if the problem is them. It's not. In under 30 minutes, we dig into what's truly broken and figure out how to build a solution that can actually work.

In this episode, I'm talking about direction — and specifically why it's not the same thing as having a plan — and then offer some ways to think about direction at this point in the year.

We may think we need beautifully structured goal systems, Q1 metrics, and a formal review process, but really 30 minutes of reflection will help you move in the right direction for the rest of the year.

If you've ever had a genuinely productive week and still gotten to Friday feeling vaguely flat, this episode is for you.

00:00 The Book I Can't Stop Recommending

02:17 Direction Is Not Goal Setting

03:25 Show Premise Setup

04:07 Busy But Off Track

06:41 When Goals Break

08:36 Midyear Reality Shift

11:17 Plant The Flag

14:30 Two Step Direction Check

16:23 Five Direction Filters

18:52 Why July Matters

The two checkpoints I mention

Part 1: Direction Check (10 minutes)

Find an environment where you can actually think. Ask yourself one question: where do I actually want to go right now? (Not where did I plan to go in January or where should I want to go). Where do I want to go from where I actually am?

If you can answer it, you have your compass. If you can't, that's the work. And if you don't know where to plant the flag, plant the flag in "figure out where to plant the flag."

Part 2: Autopilot Audit (five questions)

1. What are you still working on just because you started it earlier in the year — not because it's still the right thing?
2. What meetings, commitments, or obligations came into your life without a conscious yes?
3. What are you still measuring that no longer tells you anything useful?
4. What would you stop doing tomorrow if you gave yourself permission?
5. What are you not doing that your direction is actually asking for?

Your direction is the filter. Run everything through it.

The whole thing should take about thirty minutes.

Book mentioned: Candice Millard, The River of Doubt

Find me here:

OkayDoak.com

[email protected]

I like to think that one of my more charming tendencies

2

is I love to enthusiastically tell

anyone I know about whatever book

3

I'm obsessed with in the moment.

4

And, and then in that enthusiasm, which

is honestly always grounded in trying

5

to get them to read the book, I end up

giving away lots of key and exciting

6

moments, twists, and turns, and that

sometimes dissuades them from reading.

7

So I wanna say I am barely scratching the

surface when I briefly talk about Candice

8

Millard's book, The River of Doubt.

9

This is all about Teddy

10

an uncharted portion of the Amazon.

11

And this man had already served as

12

presidential election, and because he's

clearly a far more adventurous person

13

than I or most, he agreed to go on this

expedition with his son and a Brazilian

14

explorer and a whole crew with the entire

objective being to map this River of

15

Doubt, which is now named after him,

because that's what happens when insane

16

people go places for the first time

The entire story is completely nuts.

17

Using the term story of survival

barely scratches the surface of

18

the many, many perils that were

encountered throughout this.

19

It truly is a must-read book, and

I have given very little away.

20

But it's the sort of thing where I

would've turned around, or, okay, I

21

wouldn't have gotten on the boat in

the first place, but if I had ended

22

up on this boat, I would've turned

around at so many different points.

23

And it's really both exciting and

impressive and intriguing to learn

24

about someone who fundamentally operates

differently and has a willingness to

25

throw themselves into things and, and

test the limits of human endurance

26

and be willing to do whatever it

takes to survive, but also do all

27

of that in the spirit of discovery.

28

Every single person on this expedition

was eating limited food, if they were

29

eating at all, and, and at risk for

disease and a million other things.

30

It's nuts.

31

But anyway, I think about that

story a lot, not just because it's

32

my actual nightmare come to life,

but because it says a lot about

33

what direction really is, right?

34

Roosevelt didn't have a map.

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He was literally making a map.

36

He had a compass and direction and

the willingness to move, a- and

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that's what got him down the river

and got the river named after him I

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think about that story when I think

about the importance of direction.

39

We're often focused on setting these

big picture goals and making an

40

entire plan, but I actually think

the most important thing is to know

41

where you're headed and be willing

to move in that direction regardless.

42

The alternative is that you can make all

these plans and do all these things and

43

move really confidently, execute well,

et cetera, but end up in the wrong place.

44

Having a perfectly plotted out map

still means that one wrong turn sends

45

you somewhere you didn't mean to be.

46

But if you genuinely have a strong

and secure inner compass, you know

47

where you're headed, and you use that

to guide what you're working on, you

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know, personally, professionally,

in any possible capacity.

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You're set up for something

that a map alone can't give you.

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I'm Karen Doak.

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This is OK Actually, where we get clear,

get sorted, get going, and stay sane.

52

Today's conversation is about direction.

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It's not about goal setting.

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Goals are outputs, and

direction is orientation.

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You can have zero goals but know

exactly where you're going, and I

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think a lot of people operate that way.

57

A lot of people who are skeptical of

New Year's resolutions don't necessarily

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give themselves enough credit for

having enough direction in their lives

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that it makes up for all of that.

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And you can also have the opposite.

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You can have a really perfectly built goal

system with check-in points and milestones

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and checklists and all of these things

to stay on track and be completely lost.

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Moving is not the same

thing as going somewhere.

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Efficient movement in the wrong

direction just gets you further

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from where you needed to be.

66

Sometimes a direction failure is

invisible from the outside because it,

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it can still look like productivity.

68

If you're generating a lot of activity

and, and you're doing a lot of stuff,

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and you're making a lot of things

happen, but it's not necessarily in

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pursuit of the right thing, you're

not necessarily going anywhere.

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Direction failure doesn't announce itself.

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There isn't an alert that says, "Hey, did

you know that you're totally off track

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or that you're going the wrong way?"

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Um, it doesn't feel like

being stuck or lost or behind.

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It can feel like a really busy calendar

and a checked-off list in a week where

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you were genuinely, legitimately busy,

and you get to Friday, and you still

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feel like something's off because

you find yourself being like, "What

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did I even accomplish this week?"

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The people who are at most at risk

aren't the ones who've stalled.

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They're the ones moving the most

confidently 'cause that momentum sort

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of ends up being a cover story for them.

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And if you've had that feeling, like a

productive week, but one that sort of fell

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vaguely flat, it might not be burnout.

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It could be your compass

trying to tell you something

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One example of all of this for

me is when I graduated college.

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I didn't have a job, but I moved

to New York, and I knew two things.

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I knew I wanted to be in New York,

not because of Sex and the City,

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although it was peak post-Sex and

the City era, but because I just

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thought that's where things happened.

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And I'd grown up in a small Quaker town,

and I'd gone to a small college, and

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I wanted to live somewhere exciting,

and I wanted to work in publishing or

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marketing, and that was my compass.

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I didn't have a five-year

plan or mapped-out milestones.

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I had orientation and a willingness

to move toward it and the ability

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to send a lot of emails begging

people to take meetings with me,

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even though I had no understanding

of what I was doing or asking.

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Forever thank you to Beth, the HR person

at Digitas, who took a meeting with me

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and was actually willing to tell me what

marketing was and give me a list of books

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to read so that I could come back and

not interview poorly with anybody else.

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I didn't, I didn't know what marketing

was, but I knew enough to know an agency

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environment that was used to recent

college graduates would be a great first

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step while I figured out the next step.

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Uh, you know, an art history and French

degree doesn't really prepare you for

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that much in corporate New York life.

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And that direction was enough for me.

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While I couldn't have drawn the map in

advance, I knew which way was forward, and

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that was enough to keep me moving in the

right direction until my path became clear

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A totally different example, not of

lacking direction, but of how goal

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setting systems and structure can force

a lack of focus on the right thing,

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is one job I had at a huge company.

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We had to set a bunch of our goals in

our annual review for the year ahead,

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and I was working in social media

marketing at the time, and a bunch of

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the goals I set, because it was early

on, were tied to Facebook metrics that

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were available because Facebook was so

central to everything we were doing.

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And this was early.

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Meta wasn't a thing,

neither was Instagram.

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Not even gonna mention TikTok or

Yik Yak or Flipflop or whatever the

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hell else is out there right now.

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And when my review came around,

Facebook had actually changed what

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metrics were even available over

the course of the previous year.

121

So you couldn't even re- measure or report

on the metrics I had promised to share.

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And so I was told I didn't meet

some of the standards in my

123

review because it was not possible

for me to deliver the numbers.

124

Facebook didn't make

them available anymore.

125

They didn't exist.

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I was told I was not achieving,

when in fact, I had moved the

127

program in the right direction.

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I had done the right

thing for this company.

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I'd done all of the things the

organization would wanna see,

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but I couldn't prove it in

the construct of their review.

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So that's an example of a really

flawed setup, where there's all of

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this structure and rigor around goal

setting that is meant to say, "Are you

133

impacting the business positively?"

134

But instead, it's not adaptable

or flexible enough for

135

realistic and, frankly, expected

changes in the environment.

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The goals had no direction underneath

them, so when the environment shifted,

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there was really nothing to navigate by

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I know a lot of people set direction

in January based on reflections in the

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previous year, maybe revenue goals that

have been set for them, that sort of

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general New Year's resolution timing.

141

But by July, the season has shifted

a lot and inputs have changed

142

Even if I hone in just on 2026, there are

so many changes in how this year operates.

143

Many of us are consuming way more

AI-generated content, using more

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AI tools, using new tools this

week than we were using last month.

145

All of this fundamentally changes

how we operate, what we can achieve,

146

what we can do, and what's important.

147

Those things that felt urgent in

Q1 may have resolved or reversed or

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not be relevant, and people may be

executing against a plan built for

149

a very different version of their

life and circumstances and business.

150

Another thing I've seen happen a lot

is the specificity of goals is very

151

detailed for Q1 because you have so

much more visibility, and then it

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starts to get more generic for Q3 or Q4.

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So I've seen some Q4 goals that are

like, "Continue doing and optimizing that

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thing I started doing in Q1," because

there isn't enough information from

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the thing you launched in Q1 to say how

to continue to do it or optimize it or

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improve it or what next steps to take.

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And so there's this moment in the middle

of the year where you now have more

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visibility for the six months ahead of

you, but maybe not the right outside

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framing or support to be thinking

about whether what you committed to in

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January is still relevant or whether

you're just plugging away on it out

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of habit or routine or on autopilot.

162

Every year I set a Goodreads goal to read

a certain number of books, and I either

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crush it or I miss it spectacularly.

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And I used to sort of feel bad when I

missed it because when you're setting your

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goal for the next year, it's like, "Oh,

you were so bad at reading this past year.

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Are, are you sure you

wanna set a big goal?

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Do you wanna try to read

fewer books next year?"

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And I take this personally because

I'm an insane person, like Goodreads

169

is personally attacking me and my

own ability to read and be a literate

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person, which, you know, probably

not the right interpretation.

171

The reality is the years I missed it

spectacularly, it's usually because

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something else was taking the place

of the time I normally spend reading.

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I was doing more crossword

puzzles or needlepointing.

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It wasn't that I didn't wanna

read those books, or I was a less

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literate or educated person, or that

Goodreads was attacking me, or I

176

couldn't find more good books to read.

177

It was that my priority shifted,

and the goal didn't shift with it.

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The question really isn't

about how far you've gotten.

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It's about whether you still know

where you are going and whether that

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destination is still the right one.

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And I think this is where I say you don't

necessarily need to know the whole path.

182

You don't need the entire river mapped

out for you, just like Roosevelt didn't.

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Although I'm not recommending anything

he did as an approach for travel,

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and I do realize, you know, a river

is water, there's only one direction

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to move on it, but could it be a

horrible metaphor for all of this?

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Not the point.

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Sometimes you spend the time

mapping and planning and, and

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none of that is the point.

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You just need to know which way is

forward from where you actually are

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right now, and what does forward

even look like from this exact spot.

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And then you plant a flag so that

even if you've taken a wrong turn,

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you know how to get back to the flag.

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Again, planting a flag doesn't

mean you have it all figured out.

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It's just about having enough orientation

to take the next step in a direction

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that's actually right for you.

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So a work version of this could look

like you have a bunch of goals built

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around your current customer base and

the way they work, but then you sign

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a new customer in April, and that

customer pushes development or introduces

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you to new use cases or changes the

product roadmap and your overall

200

thinking on, on what you're doing.

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And maybe that fundamentally

changes the way you're managing

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other customers as well.

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So instead of adhering to a path that's

tied to all of these old goals that are

204

outdated, the ability to be adaptable

exists because the flag was planted

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around providing a great customer

experience and retaining customers.

206

So that flag holds and is relevant

and is correct even when the

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specific path to get there shifts

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Maybe this doesn't make any sense, but

I keep thinking about a time when I

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was younger, I decided to make a cake

without a complete recipe, which is

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something I just don't normally do.

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I'm a, I'm a rules follower,

and I'm a recipe follower.

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But I had the chocolate cake

part done, and I wanted to

213

improvise a banana frosting.

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And I, for some reason, I baked this

in pie tins instead of cake pans,

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and the sides sloped, and I ended up

cutting off and trimming the edges.

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But I was like 10 years old at the

time, so I, I didn't wanna waste

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any perfectly good chocolate cake.

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So I started piling the scraps of cake

on top of it, the, the main cake, and I

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was pouring this runny banana frosting

all over it, and it looked revolting.

220

Um, I named it Volcaco, which did not help

in any way and is probably not a great

221

indicator of a future career in marketing.

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By every general measure of success for

baking, appearance, technique, definitely

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texture if not taste, this was a failure.

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But I wanted a chocolate banana cake, and

I ended up with a chocolate banana cake.

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So the flag held.

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I just took some very interesting and

unappealing turns on the way there.

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There wasn't a directional issue.

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There was an execution issue.

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But again, no need to confuse those things

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All right, so I've said a lot about the

importance of direction and why it's so

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helpful and, and the need to plant a flag

even if you don't have it all planned.

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So what do you do with

all this information?

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Because obviously this isn't all

a windup to a recipe for Volcaco.

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Here's the thing, you don't need a

template or a workbook, but there are,

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I think, two helpful checkpoints that

you can use, and doing them now and

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in this order could be really helpful.

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So part one is a direction check, and

for this, I would find about 10 minutes

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in an environment where you can actually

think, whatever that means to you.

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I don't know if you're the kind of

person who just needs it to be in the

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morning before other people are, are

awake, or if you need to go on a walk,

241

or if you need to, like, light candles

and burn sage and find a peaceful space.

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I, I don't know.

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But get to that place where you

can operate this way and you wanna

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ask yourself o- one question: Where

do I actually wanna go right now?

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Not where did I plan to go in

January or where should I wanna

246

go, but where do I wanna go right

now from where I actually am?

247

So if you can answer that

question clearly, great

248

news, you have your compass.

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If you can't, that's the work, and

you're going to wanna plant the

250

flag before you do anything else.

251

And here's a pro tip.

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If you don't know where to plant

the flag, then you need to plant

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the flag in the ground labeled

figure out where to plant the flag

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So that part has to come first

because you can't think about

255

everything else you're doing against

a direction you haven't named yet.

256

And so that's why part two is coming

after part one, as part twos always do.

257

So by now you know where you're going.

258

You wanna look at what you're actually

spending time on and run it through the

259

direction filter, and I think these are

five good ways to look at it, or five

260

good ways to sort of filter those things.

261

First, what are you still

working on just because you

262

started it earlier in the year?

263

Not because it's the right thing,

but because it's in motion, and

264

stopping it feels like quitting.

265

If the only reason something is on

your list is sort of momentum or

266

default, that's not really direction.

267

You're stuck in negative inertia.

268

Second, what meetings, commitments,

or obligations came into your

269

life without a conscious yes?

270

You didn't decide to own this.

271

It just became yours.

272

At some point, someone needed

something, you were capable.

273

Now it's a standing item on

your calendar about a thing that

274

was never really your problem.

275

If you don't know what I'm

talking about, congratulations,

276

I'm very jealous of your life.

277

Okay, third, what are you still measuring

that no longer tells you anything useful?

278

The Facebook version of this

is, is everywhere, right?

279

A metric, a goal, a number you're still

tracking because you set it up and

280

nobody says stop, but it stopped being

connected to actual direction months ago

281

Fourth, what would you stop doing tomorrow

if you gave yourself permission to do so?

282

Not something that's hard or that

you don't like, but because if

283

you're really honest, it doesn't go

anywhere you're trying to go anymore.

284

The things that survive this question

are the important things to keep, and

285

the things that don't, you probably

already knew, but you were looking

286

for permission to stop doing them.

287

And fifth, what are you not doing that

your direction is actually asking for?

288

Because autopilot runs

in two directions, right?

289

There are things that you're doing that

don't belong, and there are things that

290

should be there that keep getting bumped.

291

And if something keeps falling

off your list, that's important

292

information for you to think about.

293

Either it belongs and you need to

protect it, or it doesn't, and you

294

should stop feeling guilty about it.

295

That whole thing, part one and

part two, honestly should take

296

about thirty minutes if, if you

can find some real focus and quiet.

297

Part one might take ten if the answer

comes easier, or longer if it doesn't.

298

That's fine.

299

The discomfort or the slowness in part

one is also really useful information,

300

and it tells you you're doing it right.

301

So why am I talking about this right now?

302

Today is July ninth.

303

You're probably not listening

on July ninth, but if you are,

304

thank you for your loyalty and

commitment to this nascent podcast.

305

But I personally think July

is a genuinely good time for a

306

check-in on where you're headed.

307

Not a formal mid-year review process

or, like, a built-out Notion template

308

or a workbook that Claude made you

from a prompt that you saw on LinkedIn.

309

Just an opportunity to check

in with yourself and ask, "Am I

310

headed in the right direction?

311

Am I going to the right place?"

312

July is particularly useful for this

because things tend to slow down a little.

313

You may get enough time

off to actually reflect.

314

I also like the fact that the start

of July is the halfway point in the

315

year, and there's sort of something

in the spirit of Independence Day.

316

You're celebrating freedom, and

you're thinking about what you're

317

gonna use that freedom for.

318

It's also my birthday month.

319

So again, July, great month all around,

but a really good time for reflection.

320

The question is not how far you've

gotten, and it's not a guilt trip

321

about how far you need to go.

322

It's whether you still know where

you're going and whether that's

323

still where you're meant to end up.

324

If the answer is yes, keep moving,

and if you're not sure, this is

325

the moment to plant that flag.

326

You don't need to have

the whole map sorted out.

327

You just need enough orientation

to make sure you're taking the

328

right next step and to use it as a

litmus test for future decisions.

329

I'm Karen Doak.

330

This is OK Actually, where we get clear,

get sorted, get going, and stay sane.

331

Happy July and happy direction finding.