India, Dec. 18 -- As 2025 comes to a close, many professionals are confronting an uncomfortable truth: despite hard work and good intentions, several plans simply didn't work. Careers stalled. Goals lost relevance midway. Carefully constructed roadmaps collapsed under forces that felt larger than individual control.

From where I stand-as a Stanford Designing Your Life (DYL) educator and coach-the failure was not of effort or ambition. It was of thinking. The assumptions many of us relied on-about careers, success and stability-no longer matched how the world actually operates.

The year revealed a widening gap between linear planning and a reality shaped by constant change. As we step into 2026, I believe the way forward is not better pr...