Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World

This book isn’t a step-by-step recipe for accomplishing a specific goal. Rather, it offers a set of tools you can adapt to discover and achieve your own goals—especially if these goals fall outside the well-defined ambitions suggested by society. Together, these tools will enrich your life with systematic curiosity—a conscious commitment to inhabit the space between what you know and what you don’t, not with fear and anxiety but with interest and openness. Systematic curiosity provides an unshakable certitude in your ability to grow even when the exact path forward is uncertain, with the knowledge that your actions can align with your most authentic ambitions.

PACT: Commit to Curiosity

Why Goal Setting Is Broken

The common shift from boundless curiosity to narrow determination is at the heart of why the traditional approach to goals keeps on letting us down; it impedes our creativity and prevents us from seeing and seizing new opportunities.

The linear way is wildly out of sync with the lives we live today. The challenges we’re facing and the dreams we’re pursuing are increasingly hard to define, measure, and pin to a set schedule. In fact, a common challenge for many people these days is feeling stuck when it comes to their next steps: instead of providing a motivating force, the idea of setting a well-defined goal is paralyzing. When the future is uncertain, the neat parameters of rigid goal-setting frameworks are of little help; it feels like throwing darts without a target to aim at.

Because they conflate ambition with the single-minded pursuit of an end destination, traditional methods of pursuing goals have an effect counter to their intent: they create a discouraging perspective where we are far from success. Our satisfaction—the best version of ourselves—lies somewhere in the future.

Fear of failure causes us to endlessly stop and start, resulting in an uneven path where we keep going back to our comfort zone before trying to progress again. Toxic productivity leads to burnout, creating ups and downs. Working in isolation means we lack the support networks to help smooth the way.

How can you go from rigid linearity to fluid experimentation? Throughout this book, you will build a toolkit to support three profound shifts in how you navigate the world:

From Response 1 to Response 2. Response 1 is automatic and rooted in the anxiety of uncertainty. Response 2 is autonomous and based on a strong sense of agency. We all oscillate between the two responses, but the more we flex our curiosity muscles, the more uncertainty transforms from something to escape to somewhere to explore. Switching from Response 1 to Response 2 is switching from defensive to proactive. Instead of being passive passengers along for the ride, we can explore possibilities within the uncertainty. Not knowing the destination sparks our imagination. Freed from the need to control the outcome, we can experiment and play.

From fixed ladders to growth loops. Relying on a mental model of traditional goal setting means the focus is on linear progression toward a predefined outcome. Each rung represents a measurable achievement, a predictable step along a planned trajectory, which leaves little room for surprise or serendipity. When we shift to a “loop” mental model, the journey follows iterative cycles of experimentation, with each loop building on the last. Our task becomes to widen each loop by nurturing our creativity and leaning into promising tangents instead of dismissing them as distractions.

From outcome to process. When we are operating with an outcome-based definition of success, progress means ticking off big, hairy, audacious goals. When we shift to a process-based definition, progress is driven by incremental experimentation. Success transforms from a fixed target to an unfolding path. Without a fixed definition of success, we welcome change as a source of reinvention. Our direction emerges organically as we systematically examine what captures our attention instead of fixating on an artificial scorecard.

Escaping the Tyranny of Purpose

The search for purpose is often positioned as an alternative to following a conventional, conformist, or self-serving career path. I would argue that it merely replaces one kind of conformity with another.

When thinking about your life, pretend you want to craft a captivating story. Instead of a Greek tragedy with strict creative conventions, imagine that you want to write the beginning of an unputdownable tale, the kind that breaks free from well-trodden narratives.

When we fixate on finding one singular purpose, we rule out the side quests that help us grow the most. Your life doesn’t need to follow predictable acts and arcs. The best stories are full of surprises, with colorful characters and unexpected plot twists. To avoid recycling old stories, we need to break free from the scripts we write for ourselves.

Just as we have a sense of how we should behave when visiting a doctor and how the events there should unfold (we’d be alarmed if we were asked to undress in the waiting room), we also have a sense of how things “should” play out in other areas of our lives. When we navigate the world, the brain attempts to match the information it receives with a similar representation it already has in memory: a cognitive script. Cognitive scripts offer a predictable mold where the outcomes are clearly defined and the benefits pre-agreed. They act like programmed instructions that we follow in certain situations based on our past experiences. We follow these scripts because they provide us with a sense of confidence: established norms and predictable patterns reduce the fear of the unknown. We also tend to feel more confident when we act in ways that align with societal expectations, since it increases the chance that our choices and actions will be validated and reinforced by others around us.

It is reassuring to think that we have a good sense of how things “should” turn out, and it is useful not to be overwhelmed by every new situation so that we can make daily decisions. But these cognitive scripts can also become shackles confining us within artificial boundaries, limiting our perception of what is possible. Their insidious influence can lead us to ambitions that are really just adjuncts to the old linear goals we’ve clung to. There are myriads of cognitive scripts, but I see three broad categories surfacing as people consider their next steps: the Sequel, the Crowdpleaser, and the Epic.

The Sequel script: when we follow our past. The Sequel script is why we maintain the same roles and behaviors in our relationships, such as always being the “quiet one” in our circle of friends even when we feel a desire to express ourselves more openly. It makes us cling to our past successes, trying to repeat them. It limits our imagination by making us rehash old tales instead of facing the discomfort of a blank page.

The Crowdpleaser script: when we follow the crowd. For the sake of external validation or simply to appease other people, you may find yourself following the Crowdpleaser script and pursuing a conformist path instead of following your curiosity. You might live a dream life, but whose dream is it?

The Epic script: when we follow our passion. Even if we perform the miraculous feat of freeing ourselves from the past and from the crowd, we face the risk of falling prey to another type of script, which is omnipresent on our bookshelves: “Do what you love!” “Chase your dreams!” “Follow your passion!” This is the most acute manifestation of our obsession with purpose: a deceptive “ideal” path that is contrived around some imagined destination that is far from where we currently stand. This is yet another linear goal, focused more on the target than on the journey.

The beauty of shifting from linear goals to experiments is that you don’t have to force your decisions to fit into any notion of who you thought you were or wanted to be. You are allowed to go off script. You can have multiple passions. You can make progress without a fixed purpose. As you consider your next experiment, three questions can help you avoid the trap of the Sequel, the Crowdpleaser, and the Epic and reclaim your cognitive freedom: Are you following your past or discovering your path? Are you following the crowd or discovering your tribe? Are you following your passion or discovering your curiosity?

For just one day, I invite you to play a game of self-anthropology. It’s a game of curiosity, an exercise in receptiveness, a way to deactivate your cognitive scripts. It’s a fun opportunity to conduct an audit of your life and reevaluate your goals. There is no need for fancy tools or scientific equipment. Simply create a new note on your phone so you can jot down thoughts as you go about your day. Call it “Field Notes” or another title that feels playful or meaningful. Then, whenever something crosses your mind, write a time stamp and a few words. To capture representative data, you should ideally do this exercise on a typical workday. You might write something down after you read an inspiring article or listen to an infuriating podcast, record a thought-provoking phrase from a conversation with a friend or capture your feeling after they have left. Maybe you put down an idea that comes to you on the train or the feelings you had minutes before giving an important presentation. The aim is not to create a lengthy narrativized record of your day or to keep a meticulous log akin to calorie counting. Don’t try to capture everything. Use your curiosity as a compass.

Field notes offer a way to become an active observer and to discover interesting patterns in your life. Because you take notes in the present moment, rather than waiting until the end of the day to reflect, you’re less likely to forget bursts of inspiration and fleeting ideas that might otherwise get lost in the bustle of the day. When you collect lots of small data points, you create a “breadcrumb trail” and are more likely to notice overarching trends than if you were to focus only on the most salient experiences. Because of the time stamps, you’ll easily be able to remember where you were.

There are no limitations as to what you can include in your field notes. Here are some ideas to inspire you:

Insights: Your moments of curiosity, random thoughts, new ideas, and questions that spark your interest.
Energy: Your shifts in energy levels throughout the day, as well as what gives you energy or drains your energy.
Mood: Your emotions during or after an experience, whether it’s a meeting, a workout, a podcast, etc.
Encounters: Your social interactions or new connections and any insights or feelings that arose from them.

As a record of your activities, thoughts, and emotions, your field notes will serve as a rich source of observations that you can then turn into insights to guide the selection of your next experiment. After just twenty-four hours, you will have a treasure trove of data about a typical day in your life. Spend time reading your notes and reflecting. Look for recurring themes, interesting details, and general feelings that come up again and again. This is a fluid process. You may notice categories for “things that give me joy” and “things that drain me,” or for “what I want more of” and “what I want less of,” or big categories for important aspects of your life such as learning, relationships, and health. Simply by grouping your breadcrumbs into larger piles, you will see patterns emerge. This could be a persistent challenge or a point of curiosity. For instance, you could notice that you have the morning blues every day when it’s time to go to work or that your moods tend to be higher when you participate in group projects. It could be that a specific type of task always makes you feel creative or that conversations with certain people tend to yield more insights. Maybe every time you read about a specific topic, you wish you knew more about it.

Data can also tell you a lot through what is not there. Pay attention to invisible gaps and curiosity attractors: When you take a step back to consider a typical day of your life, do you feel like anything is missing? Do you feel a yearning toward something different? Like a scientist, you can now use your observations to formulate a hypothesis. It all starts with a research question. For example, if you observe that you’re feeling energized when discussing certain topics, you might ask yourself: How can I incorporate more of this into my daily life? Then turn this question into a hypothesis. Don’t overthink it. Formulating a hypothesis is an intuitive process based on your past experiences and present inclinations. It should simply be an idea you want to put to the test—an inkling of an answer to your research question.

OBSERVATION	QUESTION	HYPOTHESIS
I’m dreading giving presentations.	How can I become more confident?	Improv classes might build my confidence.
I feel anxious in the morning.	How can I feel more grounded before going to work?	Meditation might help regulate my emotions.
I get excited when talking about renewable energy.	How can I learn more about the renewable energy sector?	Networking with professionals might open new doors.
I rarely have time to read.	How can I make reading a part of my daily life?	Setting aside specific times might help me build a reading habit.

A Pact to Turn Doubts into Experiments

By unlearning your cognitive scripts, collecting data on your life, and brainstorming potential hypotheses to test, you have already reawakened your perception of what is possible. Thanks to your field notes, you are now ready to design an experiment that doesn’t fall into the trap of linear thinking. The final step is to turn your hypothesis into a pact—an actionable commitment you will fulfill for a set period of time.

A pact is a simple and repeatable activity that will inevitably bring you closer to achieving your authentic ambitions, regardless of the actual result of each trial. It follows a simple format:

I will [action] for [duration].

The pact is the fundamental building block of personal experimentation, a self-invitation to try something new and learn from the experience. It’s a call to escape inertia and live in forward motion. What makes a pact so effective is that it focuses on your outputs (e.g., “publish 25 newsletters over the next 25 weeks”) rather than your outcomes (e.g., “get 5,000 newsletter subscribers in 25 weeks”). It gives you the confidence to get started because there is no bad result or wrong choice. You just need to show up.

A pact is:

Purposeful. Although it frees you from fixating on the outcome, a pact should still feel exciting and provide meaning through the learning journey itself. When each experiment is purposeful, there is no need for a grand life purpose.
Actionable. A good experiment is based on actions you can reliably perform. Your pact should be doable with your current resources, so you can take action today rather than overplan for tomorrow.
Continuous. For the collection of consistent data, it’s important that the action that constitutes your pact is simple and repeatable. For instance, your pact could be something you do every day, every weekend, or every week.
Trackable. Notice I don’t say measurable here. Performance metrics can make you focus on the outcome. Instead, you should be able to track your pact with a binary question: Have you done it or not? Yes or no? This makes your progress easy to monitor.

Any uncertainty or curiosity can be turned into a pact, from exploring a new hobby to learning a new skill, gauging a potential career path, or trying out a new routine. A pact can be easy, such as two weeks of daily stretching, or it can be more ambitious, such as creating a digital illustration every week for the next three months. It can help you test your assumptions when it comes to your work (e.g., blocking two hours for reading and creative thinking on Mondays for a month), your health (e.g., going to bed at the same time every day for a week), or your relationships (e.g., date night with your spouse every other Saturday for six months).

We have very little control over how we feel, which is why it’s hard to force ourselves to feel motivated. A pact solves this challenge by emphasizing doing over planning.

Committing in advance to a specific duration for your experiment has an obvious advantage: it forces you to wait until after a pre-agreed number of iterations before making a decision. This will make you less likely to abandon your pact because of one particularly challenging week. You can remain confident even when facing unexpected hurdles along the way.

Shorter time frames are often more effective. For something completely new that you have never tried before, a ten-day pact is a good starting point. This provides enough time to start noticing patterns while not being overly intimidating. If it is something you have experimented with previously, then a one-month pact allows you to build on that familiarity. Finally, for activities that are already part of your life but which you wish to engage in more regularly, a three-month pact helps reinforce and amplify patterns so you can collect better quality data to guide your journey.

A pact is not a habit. A habit has an unbounded time commitment (e.g., exercise every day) driven by the desire to achieve a specific result (e.g., a positive health outcome). Failure is not the end of the world, but it’s a holdback and we try to get back on track. On the other hand, a pact has a specific number of trials (e.g., write 100 articles) and is driven by curiosity (e.g., trial a writing career). Failure is a valuable source of data to help us adjust our path or even altogether abandon the pact if it’s not a good fit for our ambitions. In fact, a pact can be useful before you decide on a new habit. We are more likely to stick to a habit if it’s rewarding. But how do you know what feels right if you haven’t experimented with different ways to implement the habit? Through cycles of experimentation, a pact can turn into a habit when you find it has become ingrained in your daily life in a way that goes beyond the initial commitment.

If you are hesitating between two versions of a pact, think tiny: What’s the smallest version of this experiment that you can run? It’s easy to maintain your pact on your best days, but think instead of your worst days.

ACT: Practice Mindful Productivity

A Deeper Sense of Time

The shift from a quantitative view of time to a qualitative one is the first huge step toward a healthier approach to getting things done and finding a meaningful answer to how to make the most of our weeks.

We need to shift the focus from what we do with our time to how we experience each moment—what you might call mindful productivity. It’s a simple idea, that making the most of our time isn’t about doing more but about being more: more present, more engaged, and more attuned to the quality of our experiences.

Traditional productivity approaches work from the top down, viewing time as a series of identical boxes into which as much as possible should be crammed. In contrast to this future-focused, efficiency-driven approach, mindful productivity focuses on the quality of the experience at hand. Employing a bottom-up approach, mindful productivity recognizes the inherent uniqueness of each box and prioritizes the right course of action accordingly. Time is the most critical resource in traditional productivity. On the other hand, mindful productivity is centered around managing your physical, cognitive, and emotional resources—the

Whether due to sleep habits, hormonal fluctuations, or seasonal changes, everyone has unique cycles of productivity highs and lows throughout the day, the week, and the year. Keeping track of your energy levels is an easy way to start managing your physical resources better. For a week or two, make a note of your energy levels at different times of the day so you can identify your energy peaks and troughs. You can add these to your field notes.

Heed and honor your body’s signals. Yawning frequently or feeling mentally foggy are cues from your body that you need a rest. Instead of pushing through with caffeine or other stimulants, take a power nap or a short break.

Once you’ve identified your magic windows, you’re faced with a crucial question: What belongs there? It would be great if you could tackle everything that matters to you at once, but while the human mind is extraordinary, its cognitive capabilities are not limitless—yet. We are constrained by what cognitive scientists call executive function, which is our ability to successfully select and monitor our actions.

How can you manage these cognitive bottlenecks? The key is to use sequential focus—doing one thing at a time—by accepting that you can’t maintain equal effort across all the essential aspects of your life, deciding moment to moment what your priority is (your family, work, or yourself) and giving that your undivided attention. There will always be competing priorities. Instead of trying to maintain an artificial balance—to keep all the balls in the air simultaneously—you can use sequential focus to choose one priority at a time and devote all your energy to it.

Sequential focus isn’t the same as time-blocking, where you segment your day in advance with predefined tasks. Rather, sequential focus leans into the ebb and flow of your cognitive capacity, prompting you to evaluate constantly: Given my current attention and working memory, what is the most sensible task to undertake right now?

Account for your mental state. Maybe recent criticism has been weighing heavily on your mind. When this happens, confront those distracting thoughts straight on. Sit down, reflect on that feedback, and write down your thoughts on paper or in a note-taking app. Then, go back to your task—those reflections will be there to go back to when you are ready.

Above all, avoid the allure of multitasking. It might feel productive, but dividing your focus is a surefire way to lower the quality of your work. Focus your entire attention on one activity. Close all other apps, leave your phone in another room, and make sure people around you know that you are in focus mode—for example, by closing the door or wearing your headphones.

Noticing your emotions and regulating your nervous system will help you develop what Susan David calls emotional agility, the ability to fluidly adapt and respond to your emotional experiences. When emotionally agile, you can navigate your emotional landscape effectively and prevent certain psychophysiological responses such as free-floating anxiety from holding you captive. You will be able to do your best work without sacrificing your well-being.

In summary, mindful productivity aims to answer three questions:

Managing your energy: When is my magic window?
Managing your executive function: What belongs in this window?
Managing your emotions: How can I keep the window open?

DOMAIN	PRINCIPLE	PRACTICE
Physical	Energy: Align tasks with natural rhythms.	Energy syncing
Cognitive	Executive function: Avoid multitasking.	Sequential focus
Emotional	Emotions: Adapt stress response.	Conscious movement

What do walking in a slow circle, making a cup of tea, and listening to a favorite playlist have in common? They’re all ways people I know ground themselves so they can do their best work. I call these Kairos rituals. These small acts help you open a magic window for something you want to direct all your resources toward, whatever might be going on in the larger scope of your life. It’s a practice to call forth your highest sense of awareness.

Kairos rituals are as idiosyncratic as the people who practice them. As you develop your own, think about a simple action that can quickly shift your mood, such as music or scent; reconnect you to your body, such as stretching or conscious breathing; or give you the chance to check in with yourself, such as making a handwritten list of your intentions for the rest of your workday.

There are two key factors in choosing a Kairos ritual. The first is practicality. You may not be able to get up and dance or light candles in the office. Choose a ritual that you can easily use whenever you need to reconnect with yourself and with the present moment, even if it’s just mindfully sipping tea, jotting down one thing you’re grateful for on a sticky note, or gazing at a photo that brings you a sense of calm. The second, most importantly, is to select a ritual that resonates with you personally. It should be something you look forward to and enjoy, not something that feels like a chore.

Procrastination Is Not the Enemy

While procrastination is often portrayed as a battle between the present self and the future self, involving calculations of the cost and reward of doing something now versus doing it later, it should really be described as poor teamwork between our emotional and our rational selves. A lot of the pain we experience when we procrastinate stems from viewing it as an enemy to fight against and overcome, instead of a partner to understand and collaborate with. The problem with procrastination is not that you’ve been lazy. The problem is that you shot the messenger.

Just like advising a friend who is feeling down to “just cheer up,” telling yourself to “just do it” when you procrastinate is not going to get you anywhere. When you try to repress the source of that awful feeling, you deprive yourself of valuable information. You are essentially wandering in the dark, stuck in a cycle of inaction and frustration.

Rather than being an indication of laziness or lack of discipline, procrastination points to nuanced psychological roadblocks that need addressing.

Whenever you’re procrastinating, ask yourself whether it’s coming from the head, the heart, or the hand:

Head: “Is the task appropriate?”
Heart: “Is the task exciting?”
Hand: “Is the task doable?”

When you have been putting things off for a little while, you can perform a quick mental check to answer these questions. For longer bouts of procrastination, I like to pull out my journal or open my note-taking app and write it down. Writing helps me untangle the different factors of procrastination and dig deeper into why this is happening. I call this process the Triple Check.

For feelings that elicit stronger resistance, you can use what behavioral scientists call a pairing method to help you get started. If the task is sound but feels dreary, pair it with an enjoyable activity. You can catch up on overdue emails from your favorite coffee shop, do your taxes while listening to your favorite band, or turn the task into a game by creating rewards for each completed chunk. If the task feels daunting, you can ask a friend to cowork with you to catch up and boost your confidence.

The Power of Intentional Imperfection

Intentional imperfection isn’t about settling for less or not trying your best. Much like the Italians know they can’t make some of the best wine and also make the best corks to close the bottles, intentional imperfection means being deliberate about where you invest your efforts, recognizing that you cannot be at the very top all the time and across all areas of life. It’s about striving for sustainable excellence rather than fleeting perfection.

At any given moment, ask yourself: What is most important right now? In which domain do I strategically choose short-term mediocrity to enable long-term excellence?

To put the principles of intentional imperfection into practice, you just need to adjust the three ambition dials:

Identify perfectionist patterns. Before you can start embracing imperfection, you need to become aware of when and how you are unrealistically striving for perfection. If you feel stretched, write down your current commitments—all of them—and describe what success would look like for each.
Challenge your unrealistic targets. Looking at the list of highly ambitious objectives you have committed to is usually enough to convince you that you cannot possibly accomplish them all at once. But you can dig a bit deeper if you need more proof. How much effort would it require to complete each of these projects to your standards? Do you really have enough hours in the day to do everything on this list? Or have you already subconsciously decided to forgo other activities like socializing or working out? Pretend you are helping a friend out and be brutally honest with yourself.
Choose progress over perfection. This is where the intentional part comes into play. Decide on the parts of your life and work where you will drop the ball to achieve excellence in other areas. It doesn’t have to be forever; maybe you’ll decide to focus on a certain aspect of your life for the next week, or perhaps it will be only for today or tonight.

REACT: Collaborate with Uncertainty

Creating Growth Loops

Trial and error are inseparable. Without the willingness to try, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and refine our trajectory. And without reflection, we would repeat the same error in an infinite number of trials. That would keep us busy, but it wouldn’t really help us grow. For sustainable success, we need to pause to learn from each repetition; to make small adjustments each time, picking up new abilities and knowledge along the way. When we use trial and error, we set in motion a series of growth loops where progress emerges in conversation with our environment. Each cycle adds a layer of learning to how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Instead of an external destination, our aspirations become fuel for transformation. We don’t go in circles; we grow in circles.

In essence, metacognition is curiosity directed at your inner world—your thoughts, your emotions, your beliefs. It empowers you to be the master of your mind, providing you with the tools to shape these inner experiences in a way that brings you closer to your aspirations. The more data you have to reflect on, the greater the insights gained to excel amid uncertainty. For example, when you notice an instinctive response and pause to consider it, you’re then able to separate it from the tangle of other factors that may be in play. At that point you can evaluate whether it is a response you want to act upon.

The secret to designing growth loops is not better knowledge or skills, but your ability to think about your own thinking, question your automatic responses, and know your mind. That’s the metacognitive edge: it equips you with the skills to be both the actor and the director in the unfolding story of your life. By reflecting on the past, you can better decode the future.

I created a simple tool to incorporate metacognition into your everyday life. The tool is called Plus Minus Next, and it does what it says on the tin with just three columns; positive observations go in the first column (Plus), negative observations in the second column (Minus), and plans for what’s next in the last column (Next).

Plus Minus Next is what binds action with reflection. It’s the feedback after practice, the thinking that comes after doing, the debugging of life as it unfolds. You can use whichever medium you prefer, but I recommend trying it out on paper the first time. Write the date at the top of a page and draw three columns. At the top of each column, write a plus sign for what worked, a minus sign for what didn’t go so well, and an arrow for what you plan to do next. Then fill it with experiences from the past week. Any experience constitutes valid information to include in your Plus Minus Next review. The idea is to capture a snapshot of your mind. That includes celebrations, questions, emotions—all viewed from a metacognitive perspective.

Plus. Write down any accomplishment that made you proud. These could be largely work-based, but don’t neglect other areas of your life such as relationships, hobbies, and homelife. Your achievements can be big or small, such as completing a project at work or learning a new skill, or small daily victories such as maintaining a consistent exercise routine. Reflect on moments that brought joy, such as special occasions, positive feedback you’ve received, time spent with loved ones, or even time spent alone. You could also more generally capture what you are grateful for in your life, ranging from meaningful relationships to your health or the comforts of your home.
Minus. Identify any challenges or obstacles you faced, whether it was a difficult task at work, an unexpected setback, or an opportunity you missed. Maybe you experienced a misunderstanding in a personal or professional interaction. Maybe there are tasks you intended to complete but didn’t. Acknowledge any mistakes you made, biases you noticed, decisions you regretted. This is also where you can note any areas of your life you feel were neglected, such as personal relationships, hobbies, or self-care. Keep track of when you strayed from your healthy habits, such as skipping workouts, eating unhealthily, or not getting enough sleep. If you experienced persistent negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, or frustration, jot these down as well.
Next. Use the insights from both the Plus and Minus columns to shape your actions for the upcoming period. Consider strategies to foster more of the positive observations listed in the Plus column. This might involve protecting your time for work that brings you joy, seeking resources to acquire new skills, or finding ways to deepen the relationships that matter to you. Simultaneously, think about constructive ways to address the negative observations from the Minus column. You could plan to tackle an unfinished task, set time aside for an area of your life that needs more attention, attempt to break a bad habit, or commit to one activity that supports your well-being.

Many people use Plus Minus Next for their weekly review. I enjoy doing my Plus Minus Next review on Sunday evening when it’s quiet at home, but some people do it on Monday morning to start the week on the right foot.

Plus Minus Next also works great alongside daily journaling, whether you use bullet journaling, morning pages, or simply free writing. Some people start with journaling, then collate key observations in the Plus Minus Next columns, or go the other way around and expand on the observations with journaling. Plus Minus Next can also stand on its own for those who struggle to journal on a consistent basis.

Finally, Plus Minus Next is a great tool for conducting an annual review. Each year, at the end of December, I sit down, go through all my weekly reviews, and write a retrospective, which I publish in my newsletter. I get to see all that I have accomplished, all that didn’t come to fruition, and all the questions that remain to explore for the following year.

By combining your pact with a metacognitive practice, you have now created your own life laboratory, equipped with everything you need to learn through deliberate action and reflection—an approach based on experimenting, assessing what worked, what didn’t, and what to change next.

The Secret to Better Decisions

Completing a pact doesn’t mean you must now strive for more. Instead, you’re at a crossroads, where different paths are available. All things considered, there are three viable alternative routes for this transition:

Persist. The wind is in your sails. You are enjoying your ongoing experiment and starting to reap its rewards, learning more about yourself and the world around you. All you need to do now is ride the wave of your current momentum and prolong your pact.
Pause. Whether it is draining too much energy, negatively affecting your personal or professional life, or clashing with other commitments, the experiment isn’t going well. As a result, you want to quit your pact or at least put it on hold.
Pivot. The experiment could benefit from some tweaks, whether that is increasing or decreasing its scope or changing your tools and tactics. Though the fundamentals of the pact will remain the same, you sense a slight course correction could be beneficial.

How to Dance with Disruption

The stress caused by disruptions varies based on how much they force you to adapt. In other words, the degree to which you are forced to change defines the magnitude of a disruption. For this reason, even joyful occasions such as weddings and holidays can be experienced as disruptive—because of how drastically they alter the ordinary. Disruptions may be especially upsetting when they interfere with important projects. The plans we lay and the roles we envision for ourselves give us a sense of control in the sea of chaos. Any disruption that derails these plans feels like more than just a change in direction: it’s a direct attack on who we are and our place in the world. And the effects of this attack can be painful.

Times of disruption are an opportunity to relax your grip on the outcome while you keep on showing up. Even in the face of adversity, we can send a powerful message to ourselves: our value isn’t contingent upon perfect conditions or outcomes, but on our commitment to ourselves and our journey. Your role is to stick to your pact and allow the world to provide you with data. Just showing up—being an agent of change in a world that keeps on changing—can help you feel more confident in your ability to cope and more prepared to handle future setbacks. As Vivian Greene puts it: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” Accepting life’s disruptions doesn’t make you passive; it makes you agile.

Finding your footing again is a two-step process, much like the two-step rhythmic pattern in various folk traditions. You must first explore the subjective experience with curiosity before calmly confronting the objective issues. Although these two steps are not necessarily formalized in the way I will describe them below, you will find them in many schools of thought. Stoicism advocates, first and foremost, cultivating a state of calm regardless of external circumstances. Only then can you analyze situations logically to determine what’s within your control and what’s not. Many modern forms of therapy consist of recognizing unhelpful emotional responses that distort our belief systems and then, in a second phase, using that awareness to alter the corresponding maladaptive behaviors.

Step one: processing the subjective experience. Just ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? You don’t even need to write complete sentences. Jotting down a list of adjectives that describe your emotions will do: for example, tense, worried, nervous, uneasy, concerned. You can do this in as little as five minutes. You can use a journal, a notes app, or a scrap of paper from the recycling bin. You can do it on walks by using the voice recorder on your phone, or through any medium that removes as much friction as possible between felt emotion and verbal expression.

Step two: managing the objective consequences. First, pinpoint the direct impact of the disruption by zeroing in on the most noticeable effects. Then map out potential consequences. This can be a quick list or a visual map. Think of this as the next wave emanating from the point of disruption. Then evaluate each potential consequence. Is it significant? Is it positive, negative, or neutral? Can it resolve on its own, or must something be done? Based on your assessment, you can decide whether to take action. You may choose to do nothing if the repercussions are minor or the issue will go away on its own. But if the problem is serious enough, it’s worth putting some thought into how to fix it.

IMPACT: Grow with the World

How to Unlock Social Flow

While individual curiosity can produce incredible feats, our collective curiosity is the motor behind humanity’s biggest innovations. Conversations feed our imagination and collaboration enables us to dream bigger. In fact, we are wired to function at our best when tapping into shared knowledge and the support of a community.

The rewarding experience of social flow is why many of the most influential artists, philosophers, and scientists have actively participated in vibrant “scenes”—creative communities where like-minded individuals exchange ideas and inspire one another.

When you surround yourself with people who encourage you to experiment and grow, you will unlock new communities of practice and creative territories you couldn’t have discovered on your own. Instead of being the result of solitary thinking, your ideas become woven into a narrative that people want to be a part of.

A community will give you access to a collective set of knowledge, skills, and physical assets that vastly exceed your own. Those communal resources empower you not only to achieve things you could not do independently, but to do so more efficiently. This way, your network’s diverse expertise and talents will complement your own abilities to expand your potential. Psychologists call this transactive memory, a system where individuals develop an understanding of who knows what, enabling them to leverage the group’s knowledge and make progress more effectively.

If you participate with genuine curiosity, a community can impact your path in unexpected ways. You join with a specific benefit in mind, but the relationships that flourish unlock opportunities that might have once seemed outside of the realm of possible. A writer might meet a developer, and together they start a profitable startup. A student might connect with an industry veteran who becomes their mentor. You may discover new interests or business ideas. The people you meet can become collaborators, clients, employers, or advisors. Such interactions are especially likely in what researchers call communities of practice—groups of people who genuinely care about the same issues and frequently engage to learn from one another.

It’s harder to stay curious when your life is unstable. Communities can provide critical help when you are navigating new or difficult situations. They offer emotional support, advice, and a sense of belonging, all of which help you stay resilient when facing challenges in your personal or professional life. That’s why studies suggest that being part of a community improves your mental health and happiness.

Don’t think that all your needs have to be met by one single group. Our needs for community are multifaceted. A local mastermind can offer peer support and accountability, a recreational sports team can provide excitement over a shared challenge, and a local nonprofit can let you contribute your skills to a cause you care about. An online forum can help you stay on top of industry trends, while your college alumni group provides opportunities for networking and professional development. Beyond the practical benefits of drawing on your peers’ intellectual and creative energy, the bonds you form will provide a sense of belonging, making the journey more enjoyable. By supporting and uplifting those around you, you will enrich your own life.

Communities do not have to be overwhelming. You decide your level of involvement. You can start small and progressively ramp up your commitment to collective curiosity.

The Apprentice. If plunging into a new community seems daunting, start by being more intentional about your existing relationships. You can start by curating your community with care. Choose to invest in fewer relationships through deeper conversations, share your authentic self, ask thoughtful questions, and listen closely to understand the perspectives of others. Consider where you can find people who share similar interests. You could join a book club, attend local events, or reach out to old connections you have lost touch with.
The Artisan. When you feel ready for more involvement, you can start actively applying your skills to contribute to the community. Look for ways to help others along their journey, whether it’s giving advice to someone just starting out, collaborating with peers on projects, volunteering to speak at an event, or writing a guest blog post.
The Architect. Eventually you may feel called to scale up your impact by shaping the vision and structure of the community or maybe even building your own community. There are many ways to become a community architect.

The journey to collective curiosity does not have to be overwhelming. Start with small steps that feel comfortable. Intentionally nurture your existing relationships. Contribute your skills and experiences to communities you already belong to. Move at your own pace, listen to your needs, and incrementally make the commitments that fit this season of your life.

Learning in Public

When you become the scientist of your own life, sharing your experiments along the way provides fuel for your personal growth, leading to fresh discoveries and improving your rate of success.

How much of your process should you share publicly, and where? With whom should you share—friends, colleagues, your wider community? How often should you share and how often is too often, straying into oversharing? Conducting a personal experiment in public offers an opportunity to answer these questions for yourself. Your pact is a perfect means of stepping into the arena. It’s a starting place to practice the art of learning in public, with all its joys and understandable fears.

If, like me, there is an experiment you’ve tried a few times without success but believe could positively impact your life were you to complete it, here is how to use the three Public Pillars—public pledge, public platform, public practice—to share your learning journey.

Make a pledge. You’ve already learned how to design a pact to turn your doubts into experiments. You can add a layer of accountability and support by making a public pledge. When we make our ambitions known to others, we feel a greater sense of responsibility to follow through. A public pledge acts as a form of commitment device, increasing the likelihood of maintaining your efforts. Start by defining who you will share your learning journey with. Will it be colleagues and peers? Fellow members of a local community? Or a more general audience? Both niche and broad groups offer distinct benefits and challenges. Intimate groups provide more depth and privacy but can turn into echo chambers. Broader communities include more diverse perspectives but lack the safety and trust of close collaborators. When choosing who to share your pact with, ask yourself: Will they support my learning journey or foster unhealthy comparison? Seek supportive team players who can share constructive feedback with empathy. Then comes the simplest but not necessarily easiest part: tell them about your experiment and the pact you are committing to. Write a text or a tweet, take a deep breath, and hit send. Voilà—you have announced your experiment to the world. Now, however, you need to follow through: to conduct the entire experiment in public, including documenting everything you learn and the tweaks you make along the way. Studies have shown that announcing a goal has the unfortunate effect of making you less likely to complete it. Making a pledge to conduct your experiment in public helps ensure that you don’t drop your pact after the dopamine hit from announcing it.
Choose a platform. People will need a way to follow your progress so they can support you. The right platform aligns with your project’s nature and feels easy to navigate. Research shows that choosing a familiar platform can increase its perceived usefulness, making it more likely that you will use it effectively and consistently. Avoid using new tools or entering new spaces that require deciphering opaque norms while simultaneously trying to complete your pact. Resist spreading yourself thin when choosing a public platform. Ground yourself in one space that feels like home so that you can focus wholly on your learning journey. It can be as simple as an online document, a private group chat, or a short newsletter. Once you have developed your voice and approach to learning in public, expand organically to new platforms if connecting with a wider community is something you want.
Practice and iterate Once you’ve made your pledge and chosen your platform, you just need to run your experiment while documenting what you learn along the way and tweaking your approach as you go, based on the feedback you receive. Just as in the gym, start small to build confidence. This will enhance your belief in your ability to succeed, which is crucial for learning in public. As you become more comfortable, move toward sharing some of your more ambitious work-in-progress projects and ideas.

By nature, experiments are imperfect. They can also be a bit scary. However, iterating in public creates a culture of learning around yourself. A scholar might blog about their research to get real-time feedback from peers. A startup founder might build a scrappy version of their product to gauge demand. A designer could publish rough sketches. In each case, putting forward unpolished ideas sparks an ongoing dialogue, to reveal any gaps and iterate rapidly.

Growth often comes from struggle, frustration, confusion—but we usually keep those moments private for fear of being exposed as a “fraud.” We worry that others will judge us as unqualified despite these being common experiences in the learning process. Learning in public is the opposite of pretending you have everything figured out. Instead, share your real work in real time—the raw stuff, not the highlights reel. Open your notebook to show all the crossed-out ideas, half-baked drafts, and scribbled margins. Share your evolving fitness regimens, journaling techniques, or any ongoing experiment. If you work at a company, prototype publicly, encourage product development teams to solicit early customer feedback, and convey challenges openly. When studying something new—for example, a new language or a new software—pull back the curtain on the learning process by sharing your questions, mistakes, and insights throughout the journey. Share even the lessons from an experiment that failed.

Learning in public unlocks powerful mechanisms to support your personal and professional growth: Get early feedback. Sharing your work in public ensures that what you are working on answering an actual need and allows you to take a more iterative approach. Increase your creativity. By publishing your work in progress, you will increase the likelihood that you will connect the dots between your ideas and other people’s ideas. Clarify your thinking. Instead of just plowing through work, you will be nudged to think about your strategy and execution in a deeper way—another opportunity to practice metacognition. Build your network. Learning in public is a great way to connect with people who are interested in a similar space. It may result in finding a mentor or lead to partnerships. Learn faster. By documenting your progress openly, including your challenges and questions, you can connect with others who have expertise and can suggest resources to build your skills more efficiently.

Learning in public can feel daunting when comparing yourself to seasoned veterans who make it look easy and natural. It may also create the temptation to wait until you feel “ready” to get started. You don’t need to be an expert to learn in public. First, remember that “expertise” is a mirage; the closer you get, the more illusory it seems. That’s why even old hands still get the jitters before putting themselves out there. Whatever your level of knowledge, learning in public will always be an act of vulnerability. In fact, this is the whole point: by sharing the journey instead of the result, you gain expertise over time without ever pretending to know everything about the topic.

Putting your work in progress out there feels dangerous when each idea risks critique, especially when you care about the work—then those critiques feel personal. So how do you contend with this fear? A small personal experiment is a safe, low-stakes place to begin. By constantly showing up, the discomfort will progressively subside—the same principle of repeated exposure used by psychologists to help people reduce their anxiety in the presence of aversive stimuli.

Just as with good old public speaking, “putting in the reps” is how we become comfortable with learning in public. The fear will never be completely gone, but it becomes more like a quiet companion than a cruel bully. You might even start to welcome the fear as a sign that you’re about to do something you care about.

On first consideration, sharing your work in progress could become a distraction. Humans have limited attention spans, and the context switching between learning in public and doing the actual work could strain this capacity. However, many public learners adeptly manage this balance. For instance, academics engage in public discourse while actively publishing research, maintaining visibility in their field while progressing in their projects. You might even set the scope of your pact so learning in public is inherently embedded into the experiment. When sharing is part of the project itself, you can learn in public without worrying about distraction.

Find opportunities to document and share that align with work you would be doing anyway. For instance, writers and artists share snippets of works in progress, giving fans a peek while maintaining momentum. Students document their learning publicly through “study grams” and project blogs. Leaders can share their ideation process, allowing stakeholders to engage early on. With this integrated approach, learning in public becomes part of your workflow. Rather than choosing between visibility and productivity, you can boost both simultaneously.

As Anaïs Nin said, there will be a day when the risk to remain tight in a bud will feel more painful than the risk it takes to blossom. Then, despite any fears, you will know learning in public is worth it when you experience your first beautiful moment of connection that came from something you shared. Start small and go (grow!) at your own pace. There is no need to maintain a facade of expertise. Don’t hide your uncertainty, your experiments, and your acts of becoming. Put them out there for others to learn from and weigh in on. Instead of flexing your expertise, flex your curiosity. And if you find yourself in need of a final dose of courage, consider the perspective someone once shared with me moments before I stepped onstage: in a hundred years, you’ll be dead, and so will every single person in the audience. So quit worrying and get out there.

Life Beyond Legacy

When you leave behind the idea of a fixed vision for your career, you may end up on a path that looks quite wiggly. Each bend brings new experiences, lessons, and opportunities to connect with the world. Your curiosity and the people you meet along the way invite you to venture beyond your comfort zone. Your enduring willingness to adapt becomes yet another superpower in navigating the uncertainties of our world. Finally, by seeking out opportunities to contribute to the world around you, you derive immediate satisfaction and meaning even as the journey takes on a life of its own. It’s a rewarding way to approach your career, but there is a challenge: How do you live by these principles in a world that values ready-made labels and neat, well-ordered résumés?

To be successful at any age, on any path, and on your own terms, focus not on legacy but on generativity. Generativity is a psychological principle that emphasizes using your personal growth to positively impact the world around you. The term was coined by psychoanalyst Erik Erikson in the 1950s, who defined it as the “ability to transcend personal interests to provide care and concern for younger and older generations.” “The best long-term fuel source is some repeated act that energizes you in a way that then lets you become a generative person, who uses the energy to make things for others,” wrote investor Patrick O’Shaughnessy. Instead of focusing on what you leave behind, generativity is about what you give now—actively contributing to your community, creating opportunities for others, and sharing your experiences in ways that enable collective growth.

Generativity isn’t measured by scale but by the depth of connection in the here and now. It is built around the conversations you have, the positive impact of the work you produce, the lives you touch. Unlike legacy, which often fixates on leaving an outsized enduring mark, generativity is found in smaller everyday interactions and contributions—in the mentorship offered to a colleague, the knowledge shared in a community, or the support given to a local initiative. These actions, though they may seem modest, create a positive impact in real time, directly enriching lives. This is how you discover your life’s meaning—by focusing on your daily actions rather than the content of your future eulogy. When generativity becomes your focus, the immediate impact of your actions is all the motivation you need.

KEY #1. DO THE WORK FIRST.

In a linear career, there is a clear hierarchy: everyone behind you and everyone in front of you. To take on a new challenge, you need to demonstrate that you have the necessary expertise to be promoted to the next stage, and then wait for someone to give you permission to start the work. These conventions create artificial friction and can limit your ability to make a meaningful impact. In contrast, a generative approach is about proactively creating value. Instead of waiting for permission or validation, you can leverage your current resources and skills to produce tangible assets that demonstrate your ability to make a difference.

Consistently producing relevant work builds trust within your professional community, which in turn increases your chances of being noticed by potential employers, investors, and collaborators, unlocking new career opportunities. This credibility not only opens up new career opportunities but also enables you to have a greater positive impact by attracting like-minded collaborators. Instead of waiting for someone to sign off on your competence, build your experience by turning your interests into action, focusing on how you can create value for others.

KEY #2. GROW LATERAL ROOTS

We often talk of upskilling, but a generative approach allows you to expand your skills laterally. “By bringing more of experience under our current range of meaning and extending our range to embrace more things in more complex and abstract or sometimes ambiguous ways, we in effect enable ourselves to experience more of life in a given present, a given now,” explained sociologist Andrew Abbott. Just as lateral roots are essential for a plant’s growth and resilience, branching out beyond your primary area of expertise can help you thrive in today’s rapidly evolving world. While others remain siloed in their field of expertise by stacking their skills vertically, your interdisciplinary experience will enable you to stand out and contribute to diverse fields in unique ways.

KEY #3. PRIORITIZE IMPACT OVER IMAGE

Career chameleonization is not merely about personal fulfillment; it represents a shift toward a more generative approach to work, where the focus is on leveraging one’s unique combination of skills and experiences to help others and drive meaningful change.

KEY #4. CLOSE THE LOOP TO OPEN DOORS

When you consistently finish what you start and reflect on the lessons learned, even if the outcome wasn’t what you expected, people see you as someone who takes initiative, follows through, and gleans insights from every experience. Closing the loop demonstrates dependability and accountability, as well as your ability to help others navigate similar challenges—traits that build trust and open doors to new opportunities. This reputation can lead to more like-minded people seeking you out as a potential collaborator. Serial entrepreneurs embody this principle. They often share detailed “postmortems” of their failed ventures, transparently analyzing what went wrong and what they learned. By doing so, they not only maintain the trust of their investors and team members but also contribute to the entrepreneurial community’s collective wisdom, helping others avoid similar pitfalls and build on their insights. Even failure becomes generative.

KEY #5. PLAY ALONG THE WAY

A generative approach to work recognizes the importance of playfulness alongside professionalism. Playfulness fosters creativity, exploration, and innovation. Finding joy in the present act of doing work can lead to discoveries that positively impact our career, others, and the world around us in ways we may not have initially imagined.

APPENDIX: Reflection Guide

Reflect on a time when setting a goal felt limiting rather than motivating. What benefits might have come from a more fluid, open-ended approach?
Think about the pressure to find a singular purpose in your professional or personal life. How has this affected your choices?
Recall a recent source of doubt or fear. How could you turn this into a small iterative experiment to learn and grow, rather than a barrier?
How do you currently manage your time? Reflect on how shifting from a focus on efficiency to a focus on the quality of your experiences might impact your daily life.
Consider a recent instance of procrastination. What might it have been signaling, and how could you address the underlying issue constructively?
Identify an area in your life where perfectionism holds you back. How could embracing intentional imperfection help you move forward while still being satisfied with your work?
Reflect on a time when you learned from trial and error. How did this metacognitive process contribute to your growth, and how could you apply it more deliberately in the future?
Think about a significant decision you’ve made in the past. Did you choose to persist, pause, or pivot? What did you learn from the outcome?
Describe a disruption you recently faced. How did you react, and what steps could you take to better navigate and learn from such disruptions in the future?
Consider your communities and their alignment with your interests. To what degree are they supporting your growth—and if they’re not, what steps can you take to change that?
Recall an example of when you learned something new in a public setting. How did this openness affect your learning process and the support you received?
Think about the impact you want to have right now, rather than your long-term legacy. What small, meaningful actions could you take today to contribute to your community in a generative way?

Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World - by Anne-Laure Le Cunff