Take some trail walks
Test small stretches of the path you sketched.
What if you didn’t have to commit to a whole life path to find out whether it fits? By taking short trail walks, you can test your ideas in the real world and learn what works for you, without committing more than you need to.
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When plotting your trail, you selected three ideas for a life path that you believe could help you reach your design goal: “I’m going to <your three ideas>.” But our minds aren’t good at predicting what will work. We let feelings mislead us, overlook hidden assumptions, focus too narrowly on one idea, and sometimes ignore what our own experience is telling us.
The only way to find out whether an idea works is to test it in the outside world. Testing means doing something in practice, because that’s where real answers appear. Each test is a small, real-world experiment designed to teach you something important about an idea. Testing does not guarantee success. Its purpose is to reduce the risk of wasting time, money, or energy on ideas that are unlikely to work for you.
For details, see: Test before you commit
Taking some trail walks is like walking short sections of the route you mapped before committing.
How do you test your ideas?
You formulate test questions about what really matters, talk to people, run small experiments, and use what you learn to decide your next step.
1️⃣ Define good test questions
Start by identifying the questions that matter most. Focus on assumptions that would have the biggest downside if they turned out to be wrong. For example, whether a certain study or profession truly fits your values and personality, or whether living in a Mediterranean climate would make you happier.
Write down clear test questions for each idea in your life path.
For details, see: Define good test questions
2️⃣ Talk to people before you commit
Find answers by talking to people with relevant experience in your area of interest. Informational interviews let you test your assumptions against real-world perspectives, instead of relying on guesswork. They also expand your network naturally. Most opportunities, including jobs, move through people long before they appear anywhere public.
For details on who to interview and how, see: Talk to people before you commit
3️⃣ Try things out before you commit
You learn most by doing and paying attention to what happens. Answer your test questions by trying things out in practice. Get a small dose of real experience to see what something is actually like.
Trying things out is like test driving a car or dipping your toe in the water to feel how cold it is.
For details, see: Try things out before you commit
4️⃣ Draw your conclusions
After running your tests, decide how to proceed. Reflect on what you learned from your conversations and experiments, and ask yourself which of the three ideas moves you closer to your design goal.
If none of the ideas seem promising, choose a new life path. You can return to other ideas from the previous phase or sketch a new path from scratch.
If at least one idea shows potential, start building your life path around it. If needed, you can test an additional idea in parallel while moving forward.
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Of course, testing doesn’t guarantee you’ll reach your design goal. But by trying your ideas first, you greatly increase the chances that your life path will work for you.
References
Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
