Test before you commit
Reduce risk by testing ideas first.
How do you know an idea will work for you? Most of the time, you don’t. That’s why you should test it before you commit.
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Our minds aren’t good at predicting what will work for us in real life. We often let our feelings mislead us, overlook hidden assumptions, focus too narrowly on one idea, and even ignore what our experience tells us. Testing our ideas before committing to them helps reduce the risk of wasting time, money, or energy on ideas that aren’t right for us. The bigger the stakes, the more carefully we should test our ideas. For example, major life decisions, like a career change, buying a house, or moving abroad, should be tested in the real world. Many people spend years earning a degree, only to end up in jobs that either don’t use it or whose day-to-day work they dislike. A little testing first might have helped them avoid this outcome.
Testing before committing is like taking a car for a test drive or trying out a mattress or shoes before buying them.
Testing ideas means running small real-world experiments to see if they fit our lives. Every experiment gives us insight into the idea, ourselves, and how it works in practice. Testing doesn’t guarantee success, but it increases the likelihood that an idea will work for us. It means asking ourselves what small, low-risk, and cheap actions we can try to gather real-world evidence that either supports or contradicts the idea, and then executing them. The goal isn’t to succeed or fail, it’s to learn. Success comes from what we discover, not the outcome itself. The sooner we see that an idea probably won’t work, the sooner we can move on to something better. Think “fail fast and move forward.”
For example, suppose someone is considering becoming a general practitioner. What actions could they take to test whether this profession would fit them? They could interview GPs about the full reality of their work, especially the parts they find difficult, repetitive, or draining. They could shadow a GP for a few days to experience the pace and routine of daily practice. They might volunteer in a healthcare setting to see how they feel about working with patients, systems, and constraints. They could also read first-hand accounts of the profession to compare their expectations with lived experience.
Or suppose someone is considering moving abroad. What actions could they take to test whether this would fit them? They could spend a few weeks or months in the country to experience daily life beyond the holiday phase. They might work remotely from there, if possible, to see how time zones, routines, and practicalities affect them. They could talk to people who already live there about both the upsides and downsides of everyday life, and compare that reality with their expectations.
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We can’t eliminate uncertainty, but we can reduce it by testing before we commit. Small, low-risk experiments help us learn what truly fits. That makes decisions more grounded and less risky.
