"It is hard to begin to move when you don't know where you are moving, how to move, or if you are going to get there"
About this Quote
The intent is pragmatic: before you demand initiative, supply orientation. In workplaces, leaders love to fetishize “bias for action” while withholding the basics people need to act: a strategy that’s legible, a process that’s teachable, and success criteria that aren’t shifting sand. The subtext is accountability aimed upward. If a team stalls, the problem may not be motivation; it may be that management has outsourced certainty to the people with the least authority to create it.
Contextually, this belongs to the modern corporate era where complexity is a default - reorganizations, new markets, new tech, constant “transformation.” The quote is a critique of movement as performance, the kind that looks busy in a status meeting but goes nowhere because “where” was never agreed on. It also smuggles in compassion: paralysis isn’t laziness when the map, the vehicle, and the road’s existence are all in question.
Quote Details
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Zarlenga, Peter Nivio. (2026, January 15). It is hard to begin to move when you don't know where you are moving, how to move, or if you are going to get there. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-to-begin-to-move-when-you-dont-know-124908/
Chicago Style
Zarlenga, Peter Nivio. "It is hard to begin to move when you don't know where you are moving, how to move, or if you are going to get there." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-to-begin-to-move-when-you-dont-know-124908/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is hard to begin to move when you don't know where you are moving, how to move, or if you are going to get there." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-hard-to-begin-to-move-when-you-dont-know-124908/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.




