Crazy Big Goals with a Ladder to the Moon
Set an inadequacy-inducing goal, then climb toward it one tiny rung at a time.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
A crazy big goal is one so large you feel completely inadequate before it — which is exactly what motivates the years of work needed to will it into existence. The goal is paired with a 'ladder to the moon': the wild vision at the top and small, even microscopic, rungs that compound step by step. Reasonable goals fail because the first roadblock lets you rationalize quitting.
Origin
Melanie Perkins / Canva ('crazy big goals' is a Canva value). Perkins compares the late-but-achieved pattern to Elon Musk's ambitious timelines.
Core principles
- 01A goal you feel inadequate before generates the energy to work hard on it
- 02Realistic goals collapse at the first roadblock ('okay, I won't bother, I'll choose another course')
- 03The goal must be something you genuinely want to achieve, because willing it into existence is enormous work
- 04Progress compounds: tiny consistent steps over a decade produce outlandish results
- 05Timing is unreliable — expect 6-month estimates to become 1–2 years, or a lifetime
How to run it
- 1
Set a goal that makes you feel inadequate
Choose something crazy big AND genuinely important to you (e.g. 'empower the whole world to design'), not merely a stretch target.
Watch out Don't pick a reasonable goal — you'll abandon it the moment problems appear.
- 2
Build the ladder of rungs
Define the sequence of small steps from today up to the vision. Each rung need only point in the right direction, however small or seemingly inconsequential.
Pro tip It doesn't matter how microscopic the first step is, as long as it works toward the future you want.
- 3
Decouple the goal from the timeline
Commit to achieving the goal but hold timing loosely — some rungs take far longer than expected and a few may take a lifetime, yet a step in their direction is still worthwhile.
Pro tip Review old vision decks (Canva revisited its 2021 deck aimed at 2026) to see how much compounded into reality.
Watch out Canva 'have not been very accurate with timing' — treat missed deadlines as normal, not failure.
- 4
Celebrate each rung in a moment in time
Engineer goals to land at a discrete moment so achieving them creates a real celebration, then mark it with the team.
Pro tip Canva celebrated with smashing Greek plates, releasing doves, and festivals when hitting milestones like launching in Spanish or reaching 100 languages.
Watch out Without celebrations, a relentless climb toward the summit feels arduous and demotivating.
In the wild
A front-end rewrite critical for cross-platform and right-to-left support was estimated at 6 months and took 2 years — two years of a product company shipping no product. The team turned it into a game with rubber-duck bath toys on a board tracking each component's stage, running weekly standups, to stay bonded through a distressing, investor-pressured period.
→ They exited the tunnel with an architecture that now supports 2,500 engineers and simultaneous collaboration that would otherwise have been infeasible.
Common mistakes
Setting a merely reasonable goal
With a realistic goal you either reach it and feel flat, or you quit at the first roadblock and switch course — neither produces the sustained effort that transformational outcomes require.
Trusting your timelines
Perkins repeatedly under-estimated: 6 months became 2 years. Treating estimates as reliable leads to discouragement; decoupling the goal from timing keeps the effort alive.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and leaders setting long-horizon company vision and annual goals
Not ideal for
Short deadline-critical projects where accurate time estimates matter more than ambition
From the transcript
“The thing that I love about a crazy big goal is that you feel completely inadequate before it”
“you kind of want to have a ladder that goes all the way up to the moon”
“We have not been very accurate with timing”
“we also have couple them with really fun celebrations”
“we have smashed Greek plates and released doves”
From the episode
The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing
Melanie Perkins