What is the plan for this position

I got into this position as white in a game recently. I felt very lost in this position and spent a lost of time thinking how to proceed. What is the plan for this position? I don't want to just mindlessly develop. My opponent played moves just to make them and ended up winning. I feel like he was waiting for me to self-destruct.

It's a little late for that, lol. This looks like a london vs hippo. If you wanted to develop with something in mind that needed to happen many moves before this position.

As far as the plan... not all positions have a long term plan. This is like a Carlsbad structure but with a pawn on d6... meaning white doesn't have the normal kingside ideas after putting a knight on e5... black has plans though. Black can go for a minority attack or the e5 pawn break... but white has nothing long term, and can only keep pieces active and wait for the character of the position to change before forming any long term ideas.

Yeah, that's probably a good way to win this position a lot of the time against inexperienced players.

The way I think of it is, you have to play the short term game. Just try to stay active from one move to the next, and keep the position a draw... you can turn your killer instinct on later in the game after something happens, probably in the late mid game to endgame... mostly this position requires patience. Like I said, not all positions have a long term plan.

Oh, and at least move your a pawn... that way after a minority attack you'll only have the c pawn to worry about and not both the a and c pawn.

That's pretty much my only long term advice I have

Looking at the full game, you pushed your pawn to a5... but this was bad. Ideally the a pawn is traded off. The endgame was totally lost for you. You had weak pawns on the a, c, and f files.

Hi

Ironic because with white here it is YOU who could be constricting your opponent to see them self-destruct. You have a slight space advantage. Actually, this exact position is a Jump Formation, so you may have additional long-term plans around this. 

...e5 is something I'd specifically be looking to play against. I did a video on Jump Formations a few months ago. Let me see if I can find it to share here rather than re-typing everything

Black's standard plan is a minority attack... don't know how that changes your assessment because never heard of "jump formation."

I first heard this term in Kmoch's book, Pawn Power In Chess. Check out my video if you are curious, but essentially you utilize the space advantage while maintaining your flexibility and play against the opponent pawn breaks. Since ...e5 looks like a liberating move in this position, I'd start to consider moves like Nc4 when I otherwise might not think of this.

Not sure how you can play against the b4 idea... it's just a standard minority attack. Typically you try to get your 'a' pawn off the board so that there's only the c pawn to worry about in the endgame.

Sure, I'll check the video out, sounds interesting.

This is a position that has often been played.
One example

Thanks for the advice everyone.

b4 idea? You mean Nc4 ...b5? then just Nxd6 wins a pawn

but yes the minority attack is also a thematic idea in similar positions.