I used to be a big believer in SMART goals. Dreams felt fluffy and not real. Like the dreams that evaporate when we wake up. Or the daydreams we have to distract ourselves. I would hear people ask, ‘What’s your dream?’ and tense – ugh, no, we need to be grounded in a good, solid SMART goal. 

I’ve changed my mind. We need to rip up our SMART goals.

You’ve got a big dream you’d love to go after - that’s awesome. Then you need a plan to get you from whoa to go to done. It’s not hard - here are six steps to get you going.

Change is a feature of life, not a bug. It’s the velocity of change that seems to have shifted. The result is uncertainty on steroids, and it feels like everything is moving. Responding by trying to exert control and make it more predictable and manageable is like trying to wrestle an octopus of epic proportions. You cannot win. Instead, we need to learn to dance with uncertainty.

This is how I spent my Sunday morning - dragging a tyre named Wilson up and down Maroubra Beach. Definitely not my first choice of ways to spend my weekend. It’s all part of my preparation for Pole to Pole…

We can have every external freedom – money, time, no obligations – and still be trapped in an invisible prison of our perceptions of what lies outside of what we know and what feels safe. True freedom demands radical honesty and doing the uncomfortable work.

Ever since the Nile, I’ve been searching for what my next really big expedition is going to be. I’ve found it…and I’m excited and scared!

Transform 2026 with 12 Gulps in 12 Months. Learn how chosen uncertainty builds antifragility and expands what feels possible in your life.

Last year I set myself the challenge to do 52 things in 52 weeks that would take me into the unknown, uncertain and uncomfortable. My year of Gulps. By the end of the year, they’d given me more than I could’ve imagined.