It 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].You need enough trials to obtain results you can trust.The repeated trials of your pact provide you with more reliable information to make decisions.

Pact

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.THE TWO-STEP RESETSTEP ONE:- Pause and lean into these emotions.- Put feelings into words.STEP TWO:- Pinpoint the direct impact of the disruption by zeroing in on the most noticeable effects.- Then map out potential consequences.

Disruptions

There are three viable alternative routes after completing a pact: Persist, Pause, Pivot.PERSIST: Showing up consistently over a long period of time.PAUSE: To admit that a course of action is no longer serving you and to bow out gracefully.PIVOT: When you decide that a course correction is needed, your next step is to understand how much change is necessary.

It 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.To put the principles into practice, you just need to adjust those three ambition dials:1. Identify perfectionist patterns.2. Challenge your unrealistic targets.3. Choose progress over perfection.

Intentional imperfection

A community will give you access to a collective set of knowledge, skills, and physical assets that vastly exceed your own.Your network’s diverse expertise and talents will complement your own abilities to expand your potential.Communities can provide critical help when you are navigating new or difficult situations.They offer emotional support, advice, and a sense of belonging.

Social Flow

By embracing the unknown and staying open to serendipity, you create space for unexpected opportunities to emerge — opportunities to learn, grow, and create value in ways you may not have initially imagined.

Unpredictability

Making progress requires two essential components: trial and error.1. The trial part of the loop involves taking action with limited information.2. The error part involves observing the results and making adjustments based on that data.When we use trial and error, we set in motion a series of growth loops where progress emerges in conversation with our environment.

Growth Loops

All the approaches to goal setting are based on linear goals: they were created for controlled environments with predictable timelines.When the future is uncertain, we overthink every possibility and we conjure worst-case scenarios, and we tend to fall back on one of three defense mechanisms, where we abandon our curiosity, our ambition, or both:1. Cynicism2. Escapism3. Perfectionism

Linear Goals

The ancient Greeks had not one but two words to speak of time:1. Chronos refers to quantity, the time of clocks and calendars, of productivity tools and linear goals.2. Kairos expresses the quality, recognizes that each moment is unique, when we are immersed in activities that capture our full attention, when we spend time with loved ones, or when we are engaged in self-reflection.

9 Powerful Lessons from "Tiny Experiments" by Anne-Laure

A transformative guide to rethinking our approach to goals, creativity, and life itself from a neuroscientist and entrepreneur, and the creator of the popular Ness Labs newsletter "I loved this profound, practical, and generous book."—Oliver Burkeman "A thought-provoking guide to doing more trials and making fewer errors."—Adam Grant "One of the best productivity books that I've read."—Ryder Carroll "This book will change the way you design your goals and live your life."—Nir Eyal Life isn’t linear, and yet we constantly try to mold it around linear goals: four-year college degrees, ten-year career plans, thirty-year mortgages. What if instead we approached life as a giant playground for experimentation? Based on ancestral philosophy and the latest scientific research, Tiny Experiments provides a desperately needed reframing: Uncertainty can be a state of expanded possibility and a space for metamorphosis. Neuroscientist and entrepreneur Anne-Laure Le Cunff reveals that all you need is an experimental mindset to turn challenges into self-discovery and doubt into opportunity. Readers will replace the old linear model of success with a circular model of growth in which goals are discovered, pursued, and adapted—not in a vacuum, but in conversation with the larger world. Throughout the book, you will ask hard questions and design simple yet meaningful experiments to find the answers. You will learn how to break free from the invisible cognitive scripts that shape your life, how to harness the power of imperfection, and how to make smarter decisions when the path forward is unclear. This is a guide to: • Discover your true ambitions through conducting tiny personal experiments • Dismantle harmful beliefs about success that have kept you stuck • Dare to make decisions true to your own aspirations • Stop trying to find your purpose and start living instead Tiny Experiments offers not just practical tools to make sure our most vital work gets done, but a guide to reawakening our curiosity and drive in a noisy, busy, disaffected world, so that we can discover and pursue our most authentic ambitions while making a meaningful contribution.