Sail Wide. Anchor Deep.

Every semester, I watch students pull up their calendars and see a mosaic of brightly colored blocks. Club meetings. Case competitions. Coffee chats. Volunteer shifts. Something called Future Leaders of Future Leadership (which is exhausting just to read). And almost inevitably, someone stares at it all and says, “I think I’m falling behind.” I usually say, “You’re not falling behind. You’re just in your Sailing state right now.”

A career runs on two states of mind: Sailing and Anchoring. In the Sailing state, you say yes to a lot of things, you sample widely, and collect real data about yourself. In the Anchoring state, you say no more often and protect your attention, so you can do a few things exceptionally well. Growth needs both exploration and focus. The mistake isn’t being in one state or the other, it’s staying in the wrong one for too long.

The Sailing state: not chaos, research

This is the state where you take the internship that’s not quite your thing, join the committee you’re mildly curious about, say yes to the project that mysteriously spreads into every open inch of your calendar. People love to call this “being unfocused.” I call it “building priors,” or collecting data. You can’t know what fits until you’ve worn a few things that don’t. Most people don’t lack talent. They just lack data about what actually works for them, and data requires exposure.

Sailing isn’t “say yes to everything forever.” It means you say yes for now, and you pay attention. After each new experience, ask yourself these three questions:
1. Did this give you energy or drain you?
2. Did you learn anything, or did you just stay busy?
3. Did you feel like you, or like you were playing a part? (You can be “successful” and still feel like you’re playing a role written by someone who doesn’t know you very well.)

In the Sailing state, you’re not looking for your passion. That word comes with too much pressure. You’re looking for your repeatable yes—the kind of work you’d happily do again even if it doesn’t sound impressive at dinner.

Repeatable yeses show up as patterns, not lightning bolts. You’ll notice you keep being the person who translates complicated ideas into simple ones, or you’re weirdly energized by negotiating with difficult stakeholders (I have questions, and can I introduce you to academia?). Sailing is how you find those patterns. You don’t discover what you’re good at by staying perfectly still. You learn by moving, adjusting, noticing what pulls you forward, and what makes you feel a little seasick.

The Anchoring state: building depth

The Anchoring state is when you start protecting your time. You get more selective so you can become really good at a few things instead of decent at everything. You’re not collecting experiences anymore, you’re building strength.

In You Already Know, I share a metaphor I use with students: you get one little paper cup to fill in this chapter of life, and there are faucets everywhere, pouring out opportunities. Every faucet is something you could say yes to. If you try to catch everything, you end up with a soggy mess and an empty cup. The only way to leave with a full cup is to turn most faucets into a drip. Anchoring isn’t deprivation, it’s curation.

It means choosing fewer things—and giving them more time. That’s when careers start to build real momentum. You stop being a beginner in a new context every few months. Your skills start to carry over. People start to get what you’re about. And instead of collecting contacts, you start finding people you can actually build with.

One important note: these states repeat

People sometimes hear this and assume sailing is for your early twenties and anchoring is what “serious adults” do. I wish. Careers don’t work like a straight staircase. They’re more like a coastline. You can be in a Sailing state at 22, anchor at 27, sail again at 35, anchor again at 41. You shift back into sailing when your world changes, a new job, a promotion, a life shift, a new technology that rearranges the rules, or even the realization that you’re succeeding at something you don’t actually want.

A practical way to do this, without turning your whole life into open water, is to anchor the core and sail at the edges. Keep one sturdy thing where you’re making steady progress, a craft, a domain, a community, and let yourself explore in smaller, safer ways around it. One side project. One experiment. One new problem to play with for a few weeks. You get the learning of Sailing without the drifting.

Two traps to watch for:

1) Permanent sailing

This is when “keeping options open” turns into fear of committing. You’re not exploring anymore, you’re avoiding the discomfort of choosing. It often sounds like: “I’m still figuring it out.” But the feeling underneath is usually anxiety: “If I choose, I might choose wrong.” A good clue you’re here is that your yeses don’t energize you anymore. They feel like busywork—stuff you do so you don’t have to choose.

2) Premature anchoring
This is when you specialize too early because it looks “responsible.” If you haven’t tried enough to know what actually fits, you can end up defending a path you never really chose. A good clue you’re here is that your noes aren’t creating depth, they’re just helping you feel safer.

So when do you switch?

You move from Sailing to Anchoring when you can honestly say: “I know what deserves my best time right now.” Not forever or as your whole identity. Just for now.

And you’ll know you’re ready because your yeses start to feel repetitive, and your noes start to feel like relief. That relief is data, too. It’s your inner compass telling you, “Okay, we have enough information. Time to anchor.”

Sailing gives you information. Anchoring gives you momentum. The goal isn’t to pick one state for life. It’s to notice which one you’re in, and act accordingly.

Until next time,

Laura