You Don’t Need to Know Where You’ll End Up to Start

Insights / Perspective / Doing business in Hungary

At the beginning of December, I made a decision: I was going to write. I did not have a detailed plan. But I had an intention, a few ideas, some hopes and ambitions and a fairly strong determination that if I started, I would keep going.

This is now my 100th article.

And perhaps that is a good reason to stop for a moment and look back. Not because there is anything magical about the number 100. Ninety-nine was already quite a lot, and I do not expect article 101 to change my life.

But after one hundred steps, the first one looks a little different.

A plan and a direction are not the same thing

When we start something, we usually want to know where it will lead.

We like plans, goals and predictable routes. It is reassuring to know where we are starting, where we are going and, preferably, what will happen along the way. But not everything works like that.

Sometimes, at the beginning, we can only know the direction. We cannot know the exact destination yet.

In December, I knew that I wanted to write. I also knew that I did not want to do it once or twice, but consistently. I wanted to explain legal questions in a clear and practical way, especially the questions that come up again and again in my work and that can seem much more complicated to someone coming to Hungary than to someone who already lives and works within the system.

What I did not know was where this would take me after one hundred articles. Today, I think I did not need to know. We sometimes confuse not having a complete plan with not knowing what we want. They are not the same thing. You can have a clear intention without knowing the final destination.

In fact, with some things, you can only make a meaningful plan after you have already started. Because along the way, you learn more about what you are doing. And, sometimes even more importantly, you learn more about yourself.

Somewhere between the first and the hundredth

At first, I was mainly looking for topics. Later, I started paying more attention to how I wanted to write. Then I began to understand what I really enjoyed writing about.

And somewhere along the way, something else started to become clearer: which legal matters genuinely interest me, who I want to speak to, how I want to work, and what kind of legal practice I want to build around myself.

None of this was written down in a perfect plan in December. It developed along the way. And I think that distinction matters. Changing something while you are building it does not mean that you are inconsistent.

Sometimes it is consistent work that shows you what needs to change. The goal should not always be to protect the idea we had on day one at all costs. 

After all, on day one we naturally know less than we do on day one hundred.

Of course, I also had to write the articles

And one hundred articles are enough to meet your former self surprisingly often.

Sometimes a little too often. One side effect of writing is that there is a record of what you thought before. Every now and then, I come up with what I consider an excellent topic.

I am very pleased with it. Then I discover that a few months earlier I apparently considered it an excellent topic too. And I already wrote about it.

Sometimes I feel that I have written about almost everything. Two days later, I suddenly have five new ideas. For some reason, the number of ideas I have rarely matches the amount of time I have available to write them.

I have not managed to solve this problem in one hundred articles. Perhaps in the next hundred, but I have learned not to take either situation too seriously.

Ideas come and go.

Consistency is different.

Consistency does not depend on inspiration.

Some articles almost wrote themselves. Others were put aside. There were periods when I wanted to write about everything, and others when I quietly wished Hungarian law would produce something completely new just to give me a fresh topic.

But the original decision remained the same. I write. 

Perhaps this is the less exciting, but more important part of the story behind these one hundred articles.

And something else grew out of it

Dracslilla was the beginning.

This is where I started writing, experimenting and slowly finding the voice and direction that now feel much more natural to me.

Along the way, the idea of LilLaw was born. I am building it with many of the things I have learned since December – not only about how I want to write, but also about how I want to present my work.

And I have discovered something I did not really expect: I enjoy creating things. Thinking about them. Changing them. Starting again. Working on an idea until it finally feels right.

Legal work requires creativity too, but in a different way. There are rules, structures, deadlines and consequences.

Here, I can start with a blank page and create something that did not exist before. That is a very different kind of freedom. And, as I have also discovered, a very different profession. So if you happen to visit LilLaw while it is still under construction, please be a little patient with me.

I am a lawyer building my own website.

I am learning.

And because I am learning, it is taking longer than I sometimes wish, but perhaps I do not really mind, because I am interested not only in the finished website. I am also interested in what I learn while building it.

After one hundred

I do not know exactly what the next one hundred articles will look like. I do not even know whether there will be exactly one hundred more and I no longer feel that I need to know. Some things do not require us to see the final destination before we begin. Sometimes it is enough to know that the direction is worth taking.

You need some hope, because without it, starting is difficult.

You need determination, because initial enthusiasm is not a particularly reliable long-term colleague.

And you need consistency, because in the end, it can take you further than the most carefully prepared plan. Then, along the way, you can pay attention.

Learn.

Change.

And occasionally look back at where you started.

As a lawyer, perhaps it is slightly unusual for me to say all this. A large part of my work is about thinking ahead. In a contract, we try to consider what may happen later. When setting up a business, we create a structure. Before making a decision, we identify risks, consider different possibilities and try to leave as little as possible to chance.

I still think that is an excellent idea, but planning and knowing the future are not the same thing. I see this very clearly with clients who come to me with a business idea. They know what they want to create. Sometimes almost every detail is already decided. At other times, only the direction is clear.

A good legal structure should not try to predict exactly where they will be in five years. It should help them start safely while leaving enough room to grow, change and perhaps arrive somewhere different from where they originally expected.

Maybe the story of Dracslilla is not so different. At the beginning of December, there was an intention and a decision:

I will write. Then came the work.One hundred times.

Along the way, the original idea changed, became clearer, and grew into things that did not exist in December. Not because I was inconsistent but because I was consistent and if there is one thing I believe after writing my 100th article, it is this: 

Not every good plan tells you exactly where you will end up.

Sometimes a good plan simply gives you a strong enough place to start.