Wayfinding: Moving Forward When You Don't Know Where You're Going

There's a moment that happened on nearly every expedition I led with the National Outdoor Leadership School.

A student would be at the front of the group, leading for the day, navigating off-trail through terrain without a clear path. They'd set a direction in the morning, check the map, identify the hazards, and head out feeling reasonably prepared. Then, somewhere in the mountains or canyons, an obstacle would appear.

A downed tree across the trail. A river that ran deeper than expected. A cliff that the map didn't show.

Early in the course, this moment was almost comical. Packs would come off. Maps would come out. The group would cluster together, bumping into each other, asking: do we go left or right? The decision felt enormous. Forward motion stopped completely.

By the end of the course, something had shifted. The same obstacle would appear, and the leader and group would barely break stride. Packs stayed on. No map came out. They'd pick a direction, try it, gather information, and adjust. What had once felt like a crisis was now just the next thing to figure out.

I've been thinking about those students a lot lately.

Most of the leaders I know right now are standing in front of an obstacle the map didn't show.

The world is genuinely uncertain in ways that don't resolve with better planning or more information. Decisions feel large because they are. And beneath the exhaustion many leaders describe, the kind that sleep doesn't fix, there's something quieter and harder to name.

It's not just fatigue. It's a loss of direction.

When the path forward is unclear, most of us do what those early-course students did: we stop moving and wait for the map to tell us something it can't. We wait for certainty before we act. And the waiting, waiting for a signal that may or may not come, becomes its own kind of weight. How can I move if I don't know how to navigate this obstacle? If I don't know where I'm going?

Motion creates information. Stillness doesn't.

This was one of the most important things I learned leading expeditions in the wilderness, and I've never found a better way to say it.

When you try going left around the obstacle, you don't know if it will work. But you know that you'll have more information than you did before you tried. And that information, gathered through movement, not analysis, is what actually gets you somewhere.

There's something else that motion does that's easy to underestimate. It restores a sense of agency. When everything feels uncertain and out of your control, taking one small, deliberate step is a reminder that you can still act. That matters more than it sounds.

You don't need a destination. You need a direction.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, in their Designing Your Life framework, argue that there is no single right path. There is no one destination. We contain multitudes, and the lives worth living aren't the ones that were perfectly planned; they're the ones that were paid attention to.

They call the practice wayfinding, an ancient technique that navigators used long before GPS or detailed maps. Polynesian explorers crossed thousands of miles of open ocean by reading stars, wind patterns, wave behavior, and the flight of birds. They didn't know exactly where they were going. They knew how to read what was in front of them and adjust.

The question they were asking wasn't what is my destination? It was: what are the clues telling me right now, and what's my next move?

That's a question leaders can actually answer. Even now. Especially now.

The shift in practice is this: instead of asking what should I do with my life, my leadership, my organization? A question so large it tends to produce paralysis, ask something smaller and more honest: what could I try in the next 30 days that would teach me something?

Each step generates data. Each experiment gives you something to work with. The path doesn't reveal itself all at once. It reveals itself one decision at a time, to someone paying attention.

The Practice: A Simple Tool for Finding Your Compass

Here's something concrete you can start this week.

Keep a short daily log, five minutes, no more. A few sentences, or even a voice note on your phone. Track three things:

• What you were doing (be specific -- not "meetings," but which meeting, doing what)

• How engaged you were (1-10)

• How energized you felt (1-10)

Once a week, add one reflection: what am I learning about myself from this?

Don't analyze while you're logging. Just record. Then, each week, look for the patterns.

Most leaders can tell you what they should value. Very few can tell you, with any precision, what actually engages and energizes them in practice. This exercise surfaces the gap between those two things. Over time, the patterns that emerge become something more useful than a plan, they become a compass. They point toward where you and your organization should be heading.

Notice what lights you up. Notice what drains you, even when it looks meaningful on paper. Then follow the energy. It knows things your plans don't.

Movement and Reflection: The Two Things That Actually Work

Wayfinding requires two things working together. Movement gets it started. Reflection anchors what you learn.

One without the other doesn't hold. Movement without reflection is just busy. Reflection without movement is just rumination. Together, they're how you actually find your way.

This works for individuals and teams alike.

If you're leading a team through uncertainty, try something. Don't wait for the perfect plan. Pick a direction, take a step, and then create space to look back at what just happened. Ask people how engaged they were, how energized they felt, and what they'd change. That conversation is where the learning lives.

At the end of every NOLS expedition day, we debriefed. This wasn't optional, and it wasn't an afterthought. It was arguably the most important part of the day.

Sometimes it took five minutes. Sometimes a few hours. The length wasn't the point. The point was the reflection itself, creating space to look back at what just happened before the next day's demands arrived.

Leaders and followers both. What decisions were made. What the impact was. What we'd do differently. Not just the big dramatic moments, but the quiet ones too. The decision someone made without being asked. The moment a follower spoke up and changed everything. The leader who held it together and didn't realize anyone noticed.

As the instructor, my job was to pay attention throughout the day and find the moments that carried the most meaning. Then bring those forward, gently and directly, so the group could learn from what they'd actually lived.

A few questions that anchored those conversations:

• What did you notice about how decisions got made today?

• Where did the group work well, and where did things break down?

• What information helped us, and what information didn't? Why and what do we learn from this?

• What is something you can do tomorrow that will help the team achieve its goals?

Over time, these debriefs didn't just help individuals grow. Patterns emerged. Trust deepened. People started to see their own leadership more clearly.

Your team has the same information available. The question is whether you're creating the conditions to hear it.

That practice of slowing down long enough to ask what just happened and what it means, that's a large part of what I do now. The terrain is different. But the work is the same.

The Path Gets Made by Moving

Wayfinding isn't just a practical skill. It's a practice of attention.

The leaders who navigate uncertainty best aren't the ones with the clearest map. They're the ones who've gotten good at reading what's in front of them, their own energy, their team's engagement, the small signals that point toward something worth moving toward.

By the end of a NOLS course, students didn't experience obstacles as crises. They experienced them as the next piece of information. The path wasn't something that already existed and needed to be found. It was something that got made, one decision at a time, by people willing to move and paying attention to what they learned.

Movement plus reflection. That's the whole practice.

That's available to you right now. Not after things settle. Now. Wayfinding isn't just a practical skill. It's a practice of attention.

The leaders who navigate uncertainty best aren't the ones with the clearest map. They're the ones who've gotten good at reading what's in front of them, their own energy, their team's engagement, the small signals that point toward something worth moving toward.

By the end of a NOLS course, students didn't experience obstacles as crises. They experienced them as the next piece of information. The path wasn't something that already existed and needed to be found. It was something that got made, one decision at a time, by people willing to move and paying attention to what they learned.

Movement plus reflection. That's the whole practice.

That's available to you right now. Not after things settle. Now.

A few questions worth sitting with:

• Where in your work right now are you most engaged and energized, and are you actually paying

  attention to that?

• What have you been waiting for certainty about, and what's one small step you could take without it?

• What is your own life trying to tell you that your plans keep interrupting?

Have questions or want to explore this further? Reach out -- I'd love to hear where you are in the terrain.

pk@eddyline-coaching.com or schedule a meeting here