We all have a lot we want to do. Do better in our careers. Maybe find a new one. Get that newsletter finally off the ground. Oh that idea for the startup. Get into fitness, seriously this time. Rebuild that reading habit. Wean ourselves off Reels. All admirable goals, but we’re unsure how. To be sure, there are many ways of doing each of the above - a YouTube search will give you several good guides. Podcast interviews may provide inspiration. AI will crunch the wisdom of existing knowledge down to make a bullet-point plan for you. Friends, colleagues, mentors, will all have their own recommendations.
But keep in mind, what works for them, may not work for you. We all have different wirings, values, ambitions, and circumstances. Even if all of Tim Ferriss’ guests exhort the virtues of working out at 5AM, you’ll come to loathe exercise if you’re just not a morning person. A strategy that worked for someone in GE in the 1980s may not work for someone working in a Bengaluru startup in 2026.
The bad news, then, is that there is no theoretical best answer to any of the above. No framework, formula or AI-powered tool where you input all of this and get a readymade answer. The best-laid strategy can’t account for how you will subjectively react, and you don’t know how you will subjectively react to a new situation.
The good news, however, is finding the right answer is possible. Not just that, the answer you arrive at can be more reliable than any generic prescription - because it has been tested against your own life. Plus, you’d have uncovered a little more about yourself, making future experiments easier (and dare I say, more fun).
Take small steps that generate data
At Unstuck, we’re fans of taking small steps, rather than spending too much time honing the best strategy. Because steps = action. Action generates data, which then determines where you go next.
And by ‘data’ I don’t mean CTR, engagement rate, PE ratio, and all that. You have enough of that at work anyway! What I mean is - how did something make you feel, subjectively? Do you want to do more of it? Did it give you a sense of accomplishment or joy? Did you get input that informs your next step?
Let me illustrate this abstract concept with three examples, from three different levels.
You have a startup idea: Of course, you can spend months drafting a business plan entirely on your own (and there is merit in doing that). But that is difficult, and if you’re on the wrong train, you may have wasted a lot of time and effort. Now imagine that you speak to one - just one - potential customer. That one conversation will give you some data that will make you better informed. Perhaps the right time to start a business plan draft is only after speaking with ten such customers. Not to mention, they are also easier to do.
You fancy yourself making a living as an artist: Again, an admirable goal. But can you do it? Well, one way is to take a small step to see if there is a market for it, and indeed whether you’re comfortable with turning your hobby into a profession. In other words - generate data. How can you do this? Perhaps start by sending 10 free pieces of art to close friends and supporters to see whether they’d actually put it up on their walls. Maybe start with one small commission. Take the smallest step to validate, before moving to something larger (and certainly before quitting a job that’s putting food on the table!).
You’ve always wondered whether you like pineapple on pizza: Everytime you open Zomato for pizza night, you consider it. But you never do. Once, just once, order it and figure for yourself if you’re a Hawaiian fan or not! This last example may sound very frivolous - it is - but my inclusion of it here is deliberate. It is representative of the small decisions we let accumulate but never resolve, which will eventually lead to some frustration. Next time you’re faced with such a “pineapple pizza” decision, consider whether just doing it will help resolve it. What’s the worst that will happen?
Living life as a laboratory
The above technique can be extended to anything in life. Fitness, relationships, building a reading habit, exploring new art, traveling better, and so on.
Taking a question / decision / goal / hypothesis.
Breaking it down into the tiniest doable activity.
Do it and generate “data”.
Based on that data - iterate, upgrade, repeat, etc.
Over time, this mentality becomes a good way to live life. You will even start looking forward to new situations, for their potential to generate a lot of data at once. Found that you actually like pineapple on pizza? What if we go for a whole cuisine you’ve never had before? What if you took a whole vacation in just one city rather than the usual Schengen visa-maxing you’re used to? What if you experimented listening to music off an iPod for a month? The last example is not theoretical - one guy tried it and it ended up changing his life (this is one of my favourite videos on YouTube). If there was ever an example of a tiny experiment that became a bigger experiment which ended up changing everything, this is it.
It will also help you in situations you may not be fond of. These can become labs for you to try something new out. A tedious family function could become an experiment in asking one person a question you would normally never ask. A boring meeting could become a test of whether taking handwritten notes changes how closely you listen.
Shifting mentality from doing tasks to “what did I learn about myself” is a pretty healthy way to live a more intentional life.
Now if you’re ready to take things up a notch, I have one final recommendation for you.
Understanding oneself
In a seminal HBR essay, Managing Oneself, Peter Drucker had a a dead-simple yet effective way to understand how you work:
The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations. I have been practicing this method for 15 to 20 years now, and every time I do it, I am surprised.
What I like about this is that it can be done at a smaller level as well.
Feeling nervous about a presentation where you’re presenting a slightly radical strategy? Think about what might happen, and why. Compare with what actually happens post-meeting. Going to a completely new kind of event? Think about how you may react to it, and compare with how you actually did. And yes, it can work in the pineapple-on-pizza experiment as well.
Making a prediction makes the data you generate even more useful.
Go forth and generate data
At the risk of sounding like an AdTech, I don’t want to espouse generating data for the sake of it. Rather, the idea is to choose actions that tell you the most at the lowest possible cost. In effect, the idea is to choose actions that are small enough to easily attempt, but informative enough to direct what you do next.
So don’t overthink. When you’re unsure what to do next, take the smallest step that generates useful data — and take it from there.