Last week, I was having a conversation with a young man who just graduated business school and is thinking through his next steps.

He’s feeling stuck, because the doors that have opened up to him aren’t the exact doors he envisioned when he started business school.

In short, he’s looking for clarity on the path forward.

To be sure, this is natural. We all want clarity. We all want a perfect line of sight from where we are to where we want to end up. The plan for the perfect career. The perfect business. The perfect relationship. The perfect whatever.

So, we wait for that clarity. We assume the perfect move will come to us. Like a blinding flash in the middle of the night. The insight. The revelation. We tell ourselves we’ll act once we know for sure what the right move really is.

We make clarity a precursor to action.

But unfortunately, the relationship is quite the opposite:

Action creates clarity.

I call this the Clarity Curve.

In the beginning, the curve is painfully flat. You take action and feel like nothing is happening. No insights, no breakthroughs, no direction. It’s frustrating and disorienting. This is the point where most people quit. They assume the lack of immediate clarity means they’re on the wrong path.

But the truth is that the flat part is the cost of entry. It’s necessary.

If you keep going—moving, experimenting, exploring, trying, failing, and adjusting—something shifts. Gradually, then suddenly. A tipping point. A moment where the curve bends upward and clarity grows exponentially.

You start to see what matters. You recognize what doesn’t.

It’s an a-ha moment of clarity built upon days, weeks, months, or even years of stumbling through the fog.

So, ultimately, this was my advice to the young man:

Just start moving.

Take a job, even if it may not be the job. Start a business, even if it may not be the business. Date a person, even if they may not be the person. Make a move, even if it may not be the perfect move.

No one has it all figured out. No one knows exactly what they’re doing. Everyone is stumbling along. Some people are just willing to stumble enough to find their way into something special.

The people you admire are just the ones who had the courage to start. They didn’t overthink it. They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t sit around hoping for a perfect plan. They just kept showing up.

The clarity you seek is found in the action you avoid.

I’ll conclude with my favorite quote of all time:

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” — Rumi

Start walking. The way will appear.