Do You Need to See the Whole Path to Take the First Step?
Hope Koppelman writes that you don’t need to see the entire path—just the next step. I’ve found that to be true again and again. My work, and the work I love doing with clients, rarely unfolds in a straight line. It moves through conversations, small tests, and new insight. One step reveals the next.
What guides those steps? For me, it’s a blend of intuition and evidence. Intuition helps me notice patterns in a room, a coalition, or a dataset, the quiet signals underneath the noise. Evidence grounds those signals in reality so we can act with confidence. At Freya + Co., that pairing is the point: Thoughtful Strategy. Deep Roots. Bold Action.
I didn’t start out believing I’d own a business. I simply wanted to do good work, with good people, on problems that matter. Over time, instinct led me toward the kind of consulting I now practice: helping leaders make sense of complexity, align around what matters, and move from insight to action, together.
Like many of you, I get plenty of smart, well-intentioned advice. Some of it fits; some of it doesn’t. Discernment is part of the craft. I listen, test, and choose the approaches that align with my values and the communities I serve. That’s how Freya + Co. came to be: step by step, relationship by relationship, pilot by pilot.
Here’s what “first steps” look like in practice with my clients:
Start small, learn fast. We run a focused session, a quick survey, or a two-week experiment to surface what’s true now.
Name reality together. We put data, stories, and lived experience in the same conversation so people can see the whole picture.
Decide, then document. Clear decisions, simple artifacts, and next-step owners beat perfect plans every time.
Keep the loop open. We measure, reflect, and adjust—staying rooted while we grow.
If you’re facing a big decision, a messy collaboration, or a strategy that needs momentum, you don’t have to map the entire journey today. You just need the next right step—and a way to learn from it.
That’s the work I love: helping teams feel their way forward with wisdom, evidence, and care. When clarity meets creativity, the path has a way of appearing.
“It’s not important to see the entire path before you take the first step. It’s only important to see the first step. And even then, you don’t need to see it with complete clarity. Close your eyes and feel your way into it slowly, inch by inch. A subtle gut feeling is enough—an instinct or a longing or a pull in one direction over another. As soon as the first step is taken you’ll know more, and the instinct that led you there will transform into another instinct, a different instinct, an instinct you’ve never had before that will lead you to the next step… and the next… and so forth.” From The Gifts of Writing by Hope Koppelman.
