There are two essential elements in moving ahead: you need to be able to see the ground in front of you and you need to move. You don’t need a map or plan that takes you all the way to your destination. You do need to be able to take a relatively safe first step.

As you start the new year, you will be tempted to either set a really big goal or to set goals that are reactions to whatever you didn’t like in 2025. The problem will be that you lack the light to see the first step ahead or that you lack the motivation to get started. The holidays are exhausting; winter is tiring; there’s so much to do just getting by. All of these things might be true.

I once heard a priest describe working in the far north, a long way from street lamps. He said that the headlights of your car shine only a few hundred feet, but if you keep moving into the light, you can drive hundreds of miles.

The light you need to guide your first steps in 2026 will be the moments in 2025 that felt like light, like clarity, like vision. They don’t need to point all the way into the new year: they just need to shine enough so that you understand the qualities or experience that will let you know you can move ahead one step.

One of my bright spots was a team meeting this week. I was tense: I had to deliver a message that was truthful and direct and clear. And the team came together within that message and gave me a light and the motivation to move into it. It’s not a plan or even a strategy, but it is a flashlight that allows me to move forward into the shadows of a future that keeps shifting.

If you’re standing in bright sun, you don’t need a flashlight. But if, like much of the world right now, you are aware of shadows and uncertainty ahead, you need a clear beam that shows you the ground under your next step. You’ll find it in your own experience of moments that felt true and bright.