Crawl, Walk, Run: A Framework for Turning Ideas Into Action

Big goals are energising. They give direction, momentum, and something meaningful to move toward. But without structure, even the clearest vision can stay abstract, existing in theory, but never fully realised.

Over the years, we’ve found a simple three-stage progression that bridges the gap between vision and execution, for work or personal goals:

Crawl, Walk, Run.

It applies across strategy, governance, business growth, and even personal reinvention. Today, it’s more relevant than ever. Technology is accelerating, institutions are under pressure, and it feels like everything is being rewritten. This chaos is not failure; it is a sign the system is shifting, and that we are in the messy middle that comes with transformation.

In this environment, the constraint isn’t just capital or skill, it’s also capacity. The real question is not just “What can we build?” but “Can we hold what we are building?” That is why a structure around goals that works with your attention and nervous system is essential.

Start With a North Star

Every strategy and goal begins with a clear endpoint, a North Star. It might be spending a month in a new city, building a network, launching a tech company, or reinventing a chapter of your life.

Your North Star is not the plan; it is the direction, your lighthouse through the choppy seas of a volatile era. Markets shift, narratives change, new tools appear, but what keeps you on course is a guiding light that is anchored beyond the short-term noise.

Once your direction and why are clear, the question becomes: What small actions can you take today to move toward it? A vision without movement is just a wish. Real change comes from deliberate, repeated actions that compound over time. And remember, if you want different, do different.

CRAWL

The crawl stage is about alignment before acceleration. These are small, low-risk actions that point you toward your goal. They take little energy or resources, but over time shape your habits, attention, and environment.

This could be as simple as shifting your routine, watching a vlog from the city you want to be in, changing the content you consume, adjusting your commute, or clearing out your space or wardrobe that reflects an old identity.

In business, crawling might look like attending early-stage events, setting up coffee meetings, exploring adjacent industries, following new thought leaders, saving potential venues or collaborators, or posting content online.

Crawls are about immersion and noticing patterns. They prepare your brain and body for what is ahead, and signal to others the shift you are making, planting seeds for opportunities you may not yet see.

Today, the temptation to scale fast is real. But moving faster than your own capacity, or your business capacity, creates friction, burnout, and stalled momentum. Crawling builds awareness, strengthens energy regulation, and lays the foundation for what comes next.

WALK

Walking is about intention and slightly bigger steps toward your goals. This is where you start living as if the future you want is already forming around you. You notice the people you meet, the conversations you have, the thoughts you carry, and how your actions shape your environment.

In business, walking might mean refining a market entry, testing messaging, identifying partners, or running small experiments. Personally, it could involve practising skills and traits needed for the next level, testing your tolerance for uncertainty, or seeing how your values align with your actions.

Walking is where ambition meets capacity. You are no longer just dreaming, you are actively preparing for your goal to arrive.

RUN

Running is decisive action. Your small actions are second nature, your walking habits feel right, and now you tackle bigger steps: booking tickets, launching a product, signing a lease, or hitting send on a message.

Running requires energy, focus, and courage. But with crawl and walk in place, the leap feels inevitable rather than reckless. Many founders and organisations try to run too early, scaling before preparation, often leading to mistakes or burnout. Patience ensures your foundations are solid so your run is sustainable.

Crawl, Walk, Run in Action

Say you want to speak on an international stage, for example, a conference on the future of technology in Milan. Here’s how you could break down this goal:

Crawl: Start by immersing yourself in the city and the topic. Watch walk-around vlogs of Milan, or other videos on your topic. Create a list of restaurants and museums you’d like to visit and draft a short itinerary for a day off. Begin drafting a quick outline of your presentation for fun. Research past speakers and their work, and think about the questions you would ask if given the opportunity.

Walk: Begin creating content aligned with the topic you want to speak on. Set up coffee meetings with others in your industry in your area to build your network. Submit abstracts to other conferences and attend similar events. Start making this part of your identity and incorporate it into your professional presence.

Run: Submit your abstract and, after confirmation, book the tickets. Buy the outfit, start writing the full presentation, and rehearse until it feels natural. Make a list of people you want to meet, without expectations, and begin thinking about your next big goal.

Consult Your Future Self

A simple but powerful question while doing this is: What would my future self wish I had done today?

That future version of you already knows the answers. What preparation would they be grateful for? What skills, knowledge, or relationships would they expect you to be building now?

If they lead at scale, today’s action might strengthen how they manage energy. If they navigate complex systems, it might be pattern recognition. If they build for the long term, it might focus on sustainability over speed. The biggest shifts often come from asking: Am I spending time with the right people, and is my environment supporting me?

Make Sure Your North Star is Future-Facing

Before you crawl, walk, or run, pause to question the direction itself. A goal built for yesterday might not survive the future you are building. A future-facing North Star reflects the shifts that make systems resilient.

Keep these principles in mind:

• Focus on long-term capability, not just immediate wins. Will this goal build lasting strength or just a temporary result?

• Enable distributed decision-making. Can the right people act where it matters, or is everything stuck at the top?

• Foster connection, not isolation. Does this strengthen networks or leave teams and systems siloed?

• Create regenerative value, not extraction. Will success reinforce the people and systems it relies on, or quietly erode them?

• Build trust through transparency, not just compliance. Is credibility earned through openness and shared values or just following rules?

With a North Star anchored in these principles, crawl, walk, run becomes a practical way to build capability in the right direction. It removes overwhelm, aligns identity with action, and makes ambitious goals tangible. For more, you can read about our Future-Facing Framework here.

But most importantly, it recognises that founders, leaders, and creators are living parts of the systems they shape. As ideas grow in scale and impact, the humans behind them must grow as well.

This next era is not a sprint toward disruption. It is a long crossing. The future does not arrive in a snap or dramatic leaps, it is built through deliberate, incremental shifts that over time become transformative.

Pick a North Star that feels like you and would make you proud. (Go big.) Start with small actions to crawl toward it, build up to a walk, and when the time is right, and even if the road twists, start running and take the leap.