Why You Should Replace Long Term Plans for Micro Experiments
Discover why micro experiments beat grand plans for mental health. Learn to embrace uncertainty, decode procrastination, and experiment your way to a life that matters.
You've undoubtedly seen the countless people carrying invisible backpacks stuffed with 10-year plans, vision boards, and an overwhelming amount of self-improvement books. They're exhausted, anxious, and convinced they're failing at life because they haven't "found their purpose" yet or followed their “passion”.
Here’s a refreshingly practical approach: forget the grand plans and start experimenting.
Why Our Brains Are Having a Meltdown
Let's start with the elephant in the room: we're all experiencing "cognitive overload." Our stone-age brains are trying to process a digital-age world, and frankly, they're not handling it well. Think of it like trying to run modern software on a computer from 1995—lots of crashing and frustrated users.
This overload manifests in what I see daily in my practice: the endless comparison trap. Thanks to social media's highlight reels, we're constantly measuring our behind-the-scenes struggles against everyone else's carefully curated success stories. It's like comparing your rough draft to someone else's published novel—naturally, you're going to feel inadequate.
The Toxic Myth Of Linear Success
Here's where things get interesting from a therapeutic standpoint. We can challenge the linear success model—that seductive belief that if you just follow steps A, B, and C, you'll reach happiness at point D. This model is particularly damaging because it assumes two things that are rarely true:
You know exactly where you want to go
Where you want to go won't change over time
In therapy, we call this "fortune telling"—a cognitive distortion where we pretend we can predict the future with certainty. Spoiler alert: we can't. The world changes, we change, and that's not a bug in the system—it's a feature. The Buddhists call it the “uncertainty of impermanence”.
Meet Your Sabotaging Mindset
There are three subconscious mindsets that keep us stuck, and I see these patterns constantly in my work:
The Cynical Mindset is like that friend who responds to every suggestion with "Yeah, but..." These clients have often been hurt by previous disappointments and use cynicism as armor. They've traded curiosity for the safety of expecting nothing.
The Escapist Mindset shows up in clients who endlessly plan vacations they never take, buy courses they never finish, or spend hours researching new careers while staying in jobs they hate. They're curious about change but terrified of the commitment it requires, so they get stuck at the fantasy stage.
The Perfectionist Mindset is perhaps the most socially acceptable form of self-sabotage. These clients mistake busy-ness for progress and would rather work 80-hour weeks than admit they don't know what they actually want.
The Experimental Alternative: Curiosity Meets Action
The experimental mindset is in my opinion a healthy balance of openness and intentionality. It's built on a simple but profound insight: failures aren't character flaws, they're data points. It’s close cousin dis the “growth mindset” popularized by American psychologist Carol Dweck.
This reframe is therapeutic gold. Instead of "I'm bad at this," we get "This approach didn't work—what can I learn?" It's the difference between shame (I am fundamentally flawed) and curiosity (I wonder what would happen if...).
The Science of Micro Steps
This approach aligns with what we know about sustainable behavior change. Micro experiments are:
Actionable: You can start right now, no special equipment required
Time-limited: They have a clear endpoint, which reduces overwhelm
Purpose-driven: Each experiment has a specific research question
This approach bypasses our brain's resistance to change by making the stakes feel manageable. It's much easier to commit to "I'll meditate for 5 minutes daily for two weeks" than "I'm going to become a meditation guru."
When Procrastination Becomes Your Therapist
You can use a three-point checklist to help you stop procrastinating. It's a therapeutic technique disguised as productivity advice. When you're avoiding something, ask yourself the following questions:
Head: Am I rationally convinced this is worth doing?
Heart: Does this feel enjoyable or meaningful?
Hand: Do I have the practical resources to succeed?
This framework helps distinguish between garden-variety avoidance and your psyche's attempt to protect you from a genuinely poor fit. Sometimes procrastination isn't the problem—it's the solution pointing you toward better alignment.
Becoming Your Own internal Critic
This is essentially what we do in therapy, but you can start today:
What conversations energize you?
What activities make you lose track of time?
What environments help you feel most like yourself?
These aren't frivolous questions—they're the building blocks of a life that fits.
The Permission to Not Know
In our goal-obsessed culture, admitting you don't know what you want feels like failure. But from a therapeutic perspective, "I don't know" is often the most honest—and hopeful—place to start. It means you're open to discovery rather than forcing yourself into ill-fitting boxes.
The psychology of micro experiments gives us permission to discover our way into a life that works, rather than thinking our way into one that looks impressive. And honestly? That's the most liberating prescription I can offer.
So here's my therapeutic homework: stop trying to figure out your life and start experimenting with it. Your future self will thank you for the curiosity.