Big life decisions are nerve‑racking. Career shifts, moves, relationship choices—they all feel huge, and we treat them like they need to be perfect before we move.
Two ways to think about it: Rocket or Car.
A Rocket can’t be steered. Its path is fixed at liftoff. Once you’re on trajectory, there’s no wheel to turn. Get it wrong and the whole mission fails. A Car is the opposite: you drive, you see a pothole, and you steer. You adjust the wheel by 5°. If you hit a dead end, you make a U-turn. The path depends on you.
Most of us frame big decisions like Rockets. We spend months—maybe years—analyzing every variable, trying to ensure that once we “launch,” everything goes exactly as planned. That pressure is exhausting. The illusion: we can calculate our way to a perfect future.
But life is rarely a vacuum. The wind shifts, the “fuel” of our motivation fluctuates, and the destination we picked at 25 might look like a desert by 30. Treating decisions like a Car instead of a Rocket reduces the anxiety—because the steering wheel is always in our hands.
The Pre-Launch Trap
In a Rocketship mindset, you can’t move until the plan is perfect. Analysis Paralysis. The anxiety of “getting it wrong” keeps you frozen—waiting for the “perfect” time to move, the “perfect” moment to settle a conflict, the “perfect” body weight before you start a new hobby.
The Rocket: “If I don’t get this exactly right, the whole mission is a failure.”
The Car: “I’ll start driving. If I hit a dead end, I’ll make a U-turn.”
One of those thoughts lets you breathe. The other keeps you stuck.
The Pivot is Not a Crash
In the Rocketship model, falling short of the moon is a catastrophe. In a Car, changing your mind is just a pivot. You haven’t failed—you’ve reached a fork and taken the scenic route. That mental shift alone—from “I could crash the whole mission” to “I’ll just turn”—makes big decisions feel less paralyzing.
The goal isn’t to follow the map perfectly. The goal is to arrive at a destination that actually makes you happy. And the Car mindset gets you there with a lot less anxiety along the way.