Skip the Resolution, Start the Test

Why Experiments Matter, Not Goals

I’ve been told I overthink things. And maybe that’s true. So be it.

When I’m facing a decision that feels big: career, relationship, family, anything carrying emotional weight...I tend, like most people, to want to get it right. My version of “getting it right” is to read the research, make the pros-and-cons lists, imagine every possible future, and force my husband to listen to all of them. I get a bit panicky, to say the least. But I try not to get stuck there. The way I do that is through experimentation, by telling myself that I can try something small, learn, and then reassess. And this lets me keep moving, even amid the panic.

If that sounds too simple, I thought so too at first. I learned this practice years ago from my therapist (for more on that story, read this earlier article), and over time, I realized that the experimenter’s mindset might be the most practical philosophy of change I’ve ever come across. It basically says, you don’t need to be certain—you just need to be open to learning.

Ashley Quamme and I discussed this in our podcast about clients who underspend—people who have the money to live a bit bigger but can’t quite give themselves permission. When choices are reframed as experiments, everything begins to feel more doable. And even fun. Instead of “You should spend more,” it becomes, “What if we tried this once, and talked about how it felt?” The experiment—time-bound, measurable, and debrief-able—helps loosen the grip of the status quo and provides insights.

We fail only when we can’t make that first move forward. Or, as the saying goes, “You miss every shot you don’t take.”

And here’s a really important the thing. Most of us don’t fail because we don’t know what to do. We fail because we don’t know how to fit what we want into the texture of real life. “How” isn’t a straight line; it’s a landscape. It’s terrain we have to walk, test, and revise. We have to experiment.

Photo by Vedrana Filipović on Unsplash

If we can be open to experimenting our way toward change—rather than committing prematurely to outcomes or untested plans, we might not only reach our goals more often, but actually enjoy the journey there, too.

And this isn’t just a mindset trick. Across psychology, coaching, and complexity science, the same pattern emerges: small, reversible experiments are what makes real transformation possible. Karl Weick (1995) calls them “small wins.” Dave Snowden (2020) calls them “safe-to-fail experiments.” Therapists use them as “behavioral experiments.” All describe the same thing: a way of learning that begins with curiosity, not certainty.

This is about learning our way forward; establishing a framework to experiment with money, meaning, and change. And what’s true for personal change is just as true in financial planning: progress starts with vision long before goals even come into the picture.

A Vision Is Not a Goal: Exploring the Story Beneath the Strategy

When I teach advisors about the psychology of change, I often start by asking them to imagine the first few minutes of a discovery meeting. The client sits down, maybe a little nervous, and the advisor begins with what feels natural:

“What are your financial goals?”

It’s a fair question—but also a really hard one, especially at the beginning.

Most people don’t walk into a financial planning meeting with a clear, emotionally grounded sense of what they want. Instead, they bring a handful of broad ideas: “retire at age 60,” “pay for college,” “travel more.” And my argument is that those are outcomes, not desires. They’re just goals. And many outcome-based goals are fragile. They shift, contradict, and often turn out to be means rather than ends.

What I’m getting at is this: vision and goals serve different purposes in both life and financial planning. And in many early conversations, the piece that tends to be missing is vision—a deeper picture of the life a person wants to live and the kind of self they’re becoming in the process. We have to have a positive, beautiful, fulfilling vision to be walking toward or we usually just stay with the status quo; we need a compelling reason to change.

This is where Intentional Change Theory comes in. Developed by Richard Boyatzis and his colleagues (2024), ICT shows that sustainable change doesn’t begin with problem solving (addressing the “real self”); it begins with visioning (imagining the “ideal self”). When people start by naming what excites and inspires them, they enter a psychological state called the Positive Emotional Attractor. It’s marked by openness, creativity, and intrinsic motivation.

The alternative—starting with deficits, fears, or immediate financial problems—activates the Negative Emotional Attractor, which narrows focus and triggers stress responses. You can’t dream big when your body is in fight-or-flight mode.

So before talking about what’s wrong and all the things that have to change, we have to talk about what’s possible and why that matters. That’s the essence of vision: it’s not a list of goals or a bigger goal. Instead, it’s a description of meaning. It’s the “why” behind the “what,” and it’s the “why” keeps us motivated and curious about the “how.”

In a discovery meeting, a vision-based opening might sound like this:

• “If you could design your ideal financial future, what would it look like?”

• “What does financial peace mean to you?”

• “When you think about the next decade, what would make you feel alive and proud?”

Vision comes first because it clarifies the emotional purpose of the journey. But even once a vision is clear, we still can’t leap straight to goals. Vision gives direction, but the path is always uncertain. And that’s where experiments come in.

An experiment is what translates a vision into lived experience. It’s how we test, refine, and adapt our way toward something that can’t be fully known in advance. And in this way, experiments help create a bridge between vision and goals.

Think of it as a progression in the following sequence (order of operation matters here):

• Vision gives direction—a sense of what matters and a foundation for the right strategy.

• Experiments encourage curiosity, creating movement before commitment.

• Goals provide structure. And when we first reflect on what we’ve learned through envisioning and experimentation, those goals become far more meaningful and motivating.

Because if you start with goals, you’ll just get compliance. But if you start with vision and move through experiments, you’ll get commitment… and much better data.

Suppose a client’s vision is to “live more freely” in retirement and to “spend more time on experiences, not things.” Instead of jumping straight into financial projections or bucket strategies, we can design a small experiment: take a two-week trip next year, spend at a level that feels slightly uncomfortable, and then come back to discuss what felt joyful, what felt wasteful, and what surprised them.

Now imagine that the client comes back and reports that, while they had a good time, the travel itself was exhausting. More importantly, the highlight wasn’t the destination at all—it was a cooking class they took along the way. Armed with this new data about what worked and what didn’t, the advisor suggests trying a few local cooking classes—no travel required. Over the next six months, the client discovers that taking classes with others embodies exactly what they meant by “living freely” and “spending on experiences.” With that insight, the advisor and client can now bake (pun intended!) a fully formed and meaningful goal into the plan: to have a “courses” bucket in the retirement spending plan that covers at least two classes a year, potentially with room to invite a grandchild, child, or friend to join.

When advisors invert that order—starting with goals or problems—they unintentionally move clients into a narrower, more evaluative mindset. And that shift can shut down the very curiosity that fuels sustainable change. Vision, experiments, and goals each rely on different emotional states and invite different kinds of questions to explore them effectively.

Before anyone calls this semantics, let me be clear: this isn’t about terminology. It’s about texture—the tone of the conversation and ideas that emerge from the mix of these three steps. When we ask about goals, we invite evaluation. When we propose an experiment, we invite participation. When we ask about vision, we invite imagination.

The table below outlines how these three elements differ in my mind and how they show up in real financial conversations. Advisors might use different words when exploring with clients, but the perspective that each element represents is what ultimately matters.

Vision gives energy and context. Experiments keep the vision alive and adaptive. And goals help build out the vision by giving it form. Without vision, plans lose meaning. And without experiments, goals lose their connection to the person they’re meant to serve. These emotional factors play an important role in keeping financial planning from becoming a process of technical optimization rather than personal transformation.

Experiments: The Bridge Between Vision and Goals

Once advisors encourage clients to explore their vision, the next step is experimentation: exploring how that vision actually feels in lived experience. If goal-setting assumes we already know ourselves, experimentation assumes we don’t—which, according to behavioral research, is far closer to the truth.

Karl Weick, one of the great organizational psychologists, once wrote that the key to progress is “small wins” (1995)—tiny, concrete steps that turn abstract problems into manageable actions. Importantly, Weick isn’t talking about SMART goals here. His small wins are small experiments: you try something, learn from it, and adjust. The learning compounds. You act your way into clarity rather than waiting for clarity to act.

Dave Snowden, whose Cynefin Framework helps leaders navigate complexity, uses a different term for the same idea: safe-to-fail experimentation. When cause and effect aren’t predictable—human behavior, markets, and emotions all interacting in shambolic ways—the best strategy isn’t to design one big, fail-safe plan. It’s to run multiple small tests and watch what happens. See what amplifies, what fizzles, and what emerges. Think of this as A/B testing—the iterative process used to understand what people actually respond to, rather than launching a marketing campaign and simply crossing your fingers, hoping it works.

Weick and Snowden may have been writing about organizations, but the same logic applies to people. Financial plans, careers, and relationships don’t unfold in straight lines. When life is complex, trying to plan your way through it is like trying to navigate a river from the shore. You can’t. You have to get in the water.

In therapy, this philosophy shows up everywhere. Cognitive behavioral therapists use behavioral experiments to help clients test beliefs rather than just talk about them. “If I ask for help, people will think I’m weak,” becomes an experiment: ask once and observe what actually happens. The point isn’t success or failure—it’s data. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy takes a similar approach: identify what matters most, take small, values-based actions, and adjust as you go. In both cases, change happens through experience, reflection, and adjustment, not through analyzing the problem in advance.

The same principle applies to financial decisions. Try a short-term spending or giving experiment this year, notice how it feels, and recalibrate. Instead of forcing a permanent identity shift—I’m a spender now—the client is simply gathering emotional data about what fits.

Importantly, experiments don’t require confidence. Confidence tends to grow through experimentation.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff (2025), founder of Ness Labs and author of Tiny Experiments, describes it beautifully: success isn’t a straight line from point A to point B—it’s a cycle of observation, hypothesis, testing, and reflection. Her framework invites people to turn vague intentions into small, intentional tests using her PACT model: Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous, Trackable.

• “I will write for fifteen minutes every morning for thirty days” instead of “I will finish my book this year.”

• “I will reach out to one new person each week for eight weeks” instead of “I will build a professional network.”

The distinction is simple but powerful: PACT focuses on outputs you can control, not outcomes you can’t. PACT’s reflection step—the trackable component—is the hinge. An experiment only matters if there’s a debrief. Without it, you’re just trying things. Learning happens in looking back—in naming what worked, what didn’t, and what it taught you about what matters.

In complexity science, this is called sensemaking: creating meaning from experience. In human terms, it’s how we grow. When we treat life as a series of safe-to-fail experiments, we stop demanding perfection from ourselves and start allowing presence. We stop expecting to know in advance what will work and start trusting that we can learn our way there.

That shift—from predicting to observing, from controlling to participating—isn’t just more accurate. It’s more alive.

Change doesn’t begin when we finally figure it all out. It begins the moment we’re willing to try something new and pay attention to what it teaches us. And when this experimental mindset is brought into financial conversations, it opens a whole new way for clients to explore their relationship with money.

Experiments With Money: Turning Vision Into Meaningful Goals

Money experiments don’t have to be grand or dramatic. They just have to be “enough” to feel something. An experiment is temporary, bounded, and meant to generate learning. That’s what makes it emotionally safe. The client isn’t committing to a new lifestyle—they’re trying something once, to see what it teaches them. The insights that come out of this work are emotional data. And these emotional insights become the raw material for meaningful goals, giving advisors clearer direction about what truly fits their clients’ values, identities, and lived experiences.

It’s not about right or wrong, smart or naive. It’s about noticing—how it felt, what it revealed, what it suggests for next time.

Experiments Lower the Stakes

One of the biggest fears among underspending clients is what one might call the slippery-slope worry. “If I fly business class once, will I get used to it? If I upgrade the kitchen, will that turn into constant remodeling?” This fear of losing control keeps people frozen in routines that no longer serve them. But an experiment interrupts that fear.

“Let’s try business class just for your next trip,” an advisor might say. “If you hate it, you never have to do it again.”

That one sentence—you never have to do it again—creates space for freedom, choice, curiosity, and agency. Clients can explore something new without the identity crisis of “becoming a spender.” They’re not changing who they are. They’re testing how something feels.

As my colleague Dr. Joy Lere often says, different doesn’t mean wrong. The more distance we can create between “this feels different” and “this must be wrong,” the more room there is for growth.

Experiments Generate Data, Not Judgments

Traditional financial plans tend to treat emotions as noise. Experiments treat them as data. After the test—the trip, the remodel, the gift—we debrief. What felt worth it? What didn’t? Was the discomfort about values, or just about doing something new?

Those reflections are the real outcome of an experiment. They tell us not just what worked, but why. A client might discover that the upgraded seats were worth every penny, but the five-star hotel felt hollow. Another might realize that generosity brings more satisfaction than indulgence. What can be learned?

Experiments Reconnect Present and Future Selves

Research from Hal Hershfield (2023) shows that people who feel more connected to their future selves tend to make wiser long-term choices. But most of us rarely feel that connection; our future selves can seem like strangers.

Experiments help close that gap.

When a client tries something they’ve been imagining—say, a trip or charitable gift—they get real-time feedback about whether that future vision actually fits. It’s the difference between planning for “someday” and learning from “today.”

That learning not only informs the financial plan—it reinforces the emotional bridge between who they are now and who they hope to be.

Experiments Build Identity Alignment

Many clients see themselves as “responsible savers.” It’s part of their moral and emotional DNA. They take pride in discipline, frugality, and prudence. Asking them to “spend more” can feel like asking them to betray themselves.

Experiments offer a different narrative: responsible people don’t blindly spend—they test, reflect, and adjust. Running a spending experiment isn’t reckless; it’s evidence-based stewardship. It honors both responsibility and curiosity. When clients see that, their identities expand. They can hold both saver and enjoyer, planner and participant.

Experiments Require Debrief

Debriefs can make the difference between novelty and growth, turning an event into information. It doesn’t have to be complicated—advisors (and individuals) can ask:

• What was most surprising?

• What felt worth it, and why?

• What could be done differently next time?

• Did this experiment reveal something new about values or habits?

Those conversations create a feedback loop that strengthens confidence. Each experiment becomes not just a one-off experience, but a data point in an ongoing sensemaking process. And the process compounds. When clients see that they can spend, learn, and still feel secure, they begin to trust themselves more deeply. That self-trust—not the experiment itself—is the real change.

Experiments Work Both Ways

While many of these examples focus on underspending, the same approach supports any behavioral shift: saving more, giving more, working less, or rebuilding a healthier relationship with money.

• Test an automatic transfer for three months and see how it feels.

• Curious about semi-retirement? Try a month off and notice what you miss.

• Want to give more to charity? Double a donation once and observe the emotional return.

Each is a safe-to-fail experiment—small enough not to break anything, meaningful enough to learn something. The goal isn’t to get it right; it’s to gather information that makes the next decision smarter.

A Process Advisors (and Individuals) Can Use

Because experiments are meant to generate emotional data, a little structure can offer cognitive clarity and make the experience more meaningful. A simple process can help clients understand what to try, how to engage with it, and how to make sense of what they learned.

1. Create: Identify a meaningful but bounded test. (“Try X for Y time.”)

2. Participate: Encourage full engagement. The goal is to feel the experience, not to hedge.

3. Debrief: Capture learnings soon after. Ask reflective questions.

4. Align: Decide what, if anything, to repeat or evolve into a new goal.

Over time, this process strengthens the client’s capacity to make sense of their financial choices and helps them develop a different kind of relationship with change—one with less anxiety, more participation, and deeper intention.

Why Experiments Create Real Change

Experiments shift money conversations from performance to participation. They move people from fear (“What if this goes wrong?”) to curiosity (“What might this teach me?”). And they remind both clients and advisors that money is not a moral test—it’s a learning tool.

When we treat financial behavior as a series of experiments, we restore something essential: the permission to learn in real time, by engaging with experience rather than relying on prediction. Clients gather emotional and experiential data that helps them understand what fits, what doesn’t, and why. And this work is what makes lasting change possible.

Experiments keep people engaged with their experience, create space for reflection, and build the self-trust needed to move from intention to action. And what clients learn from these experiments—what feels right, energizing, or aligned—builds a strong foundation for the goals they choose to pursue.

The Joy of Ongoing Discovery

By the time you read this, it will be January. A new year, a new start, a fresh list of goals. Some of us love the idea of beginnings—blank pages, vision boards, the neat boxes that outline what we plan to do differently this time. But the truth is, most resolutions collapse by spring. Not because we lack discipline or direction, but because goals alone can’t hold the weight of human change. Change is rarely about doing one big thing better. It’s about noticing what happens when we do something small in a different way.

Here’s one more consideration about vision, experimentation, and goals. Last month I wrote about psychological richness—a quality of life characterized not just by happiness or meaning, but by variety, complexity, and growth. It’s the feeling of being engaged in an ongoing experiment with living. A rich life, in that sense, is one that keeps teaching you something about yourself. Life should allow for false starts, surprises, and recalibration. We can welcome doubt, give ourselves permission to not know, and still have the courage to go find out.

Learning is a reward.

So greet this new year with permission to test, reflect, and adjust. You’ll begin to build a kind of confidence that no goal alone can give you. You’ll start to trust your ability to learn from whatever happens next. That’s the kind of self-trust that makes financial planning—and life planning—sustainable. It’s not about predicting the future. It’s about developing the resilience and curiosity to navigate it.

Because a life built on experiments isn’t aimless; it’s alive. It’s flexible enough to grow, forgiving enough to change, and grounded enough to hold whatever comes next.

Maybe this year, skip the resolutions. Skip the illusion that there’s a perfect plan waiting to be uncovered.

Instead, ask yourself:

What’s one experiment I could run this month to learn something about the life I want to build?

Start with a vision.
Run a small experiment.
Debrief what you learn.
Adjust as needed.
And then do it again.

The joy isn’t just in the arriving—it’s also in the discovering.

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As always, a heartfelt thank you to my editor, Erica Mito. Thank you for helping stitch and smooth this one. Writing about how to experiment… is an experiment, and I am grateful to have you as a part of my debrief process.

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References for the Nerds

Boyatzis, Richard E. 2024. The Science of Change: Discovering Sustained, Desired Change from Individuals to Organizations and Communities. Oxford University Press.

Hershfield, Hal. 2023. Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. Piatkus Books.

Le Cunff, Anne-Laure. 2025. Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. Penguin Publishing.

Lere, Joy. https://joylere.substack.com/.

Snowden, Dave. 2020. Cynefin – Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of our World. Edited by Riva Greenberg and Boudewijn Bertsch. Contributions from Zhen Goh. Cognitive Edge—The Cynefin Co.

Weick, Karl E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage Publications, Inc.