How to Avoid Choosing the Wrong Path

Should I leave my job or stay? Should I pursue this passion or that? What if I choose the wrong direction?

The confusion usually leads to one of two path: blindly (and hastily) making big decisions, or going on forever without doing anything – both of which we want to avoid.

Why most people do not experiment before diving headfirst into huge decisions blows my mind – especially with life or career choices that can take so much time, money and energy to undo.

NO MATTER WHAT YOU’RE FACING, THERE’S ALMOST ALWAYS A RELATIVELY SIMPLE, FAST AND INEXPENSIVE WAY TO TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS BEFORE FULLY COMMITTING…

You’ve been dreaming and glamorizing about a new job? Study, meet and befriend the people who do what you want to do. Find people who are a year or so into the career as well as the veterans who have invested decades. Search out the good and bad.

Ask not only what they do, but other big-picture questions: What surprised them? Would they do it again? If not, why?

Those three questions can provide so much clarity, and many people love offering perspective to others considering the same path. Shadow them for a day or week, or offer to do a paid or unpaid internship or project for them on the side if you have to.

Those few weeks of extra work today could literally save you a lifetime of frustration. Do this before you quit, so you can be confident in what’s next.

You wanna travel the world for a year? Try traveling and living lean out of a backpack for a month.

Think you want to move in with your girlfriend or boyfriend? Try a short-term rental or go housesit together to get a feel for how things can change when you’re under the same roof.

You’re thinking about putting your life savings into buying a home? Rent a house (or room) in the neighborhood for a week (or month or year) to see if the noise, neighbors and all else is what you expected. Talk to the neighbors, take them to dinner and get a feel for their experience. Park on the street in the middle of the night on a weekday and weekend to make sure the train doesn’t plow through at 4am, or whatever other surprise you might not think you’re buying into.

Same goes for moving somewhere totally new. Spend a week or two of “vacation” time renting a place in town and acting like a local, going about your day-to-day routine, before you hire the moving truck.

You’re on the verge of buying a hot new Range Rover? (or whatever car you fantasize about – a Range Rover used to be mine) Rent one for a week or a month – there are companies that specialize in just that. Perhaps those few weeks will give you your fix – and save you a fortune. But if it’s everything you dreamed about, then go all in.

You’re about to take the plunge and build a product or business around your idea, passion or talent? Spend a few weeks in the shoes of the people you’re trying to serve. Feel their pain and figure out how you can help one specific person solve the problem you think you’re qualified to solve. If you can’t figure out how to help one, you probably won’t be able to help a hundred or a million, and spending months or years and piles of money likely won’t do the trick either.

This is how I’ve developed every product and tool. It’s the customer-driven approach to product development, and it’s the exact framework and process I teach in my Make Your First $1,000 Workshop.

I build the resources that you tell and show me you need. And I ask for your help during development to be sure it’s right. That dramatically increases the odds that I won’t waste my time creating something that falls flat and that you’ll actually get something that solves your problems.

That same testing and validation process can be applied to every part of life.

Test assumptions before going all-in.

That’s my advice for everything I talk about, do and suggest here.

Test, learn, adjust, progress.

Do it early, do it small, do it often, and you’ll drastically reduce your exposure to big self-induced negative surprises.

TAKE CONSISTENT ACTION, BUT START SMALL AND REVERSIBLE.

It’s easy to convince ourselves that big decisions come with big urgency, and yes, you want to be in the habit of always taking actions toward things you care about. But the most important first actions are these little tests to see if the commitment is worth it.

Humans tend to over-glamorize a lot (I’m no different). And even when we do see red flags, we find ways of convincing ourselves that we’ll somehow be different.

Kill the assumptions and remove some emotion – as early as possible.

Every big decision triggers big emotions. Fear, excitement, happiness, relief, etc. And emotions tend to make decisions very cloudy.

While it’s impossible to fully remove emotion from decision-making (we’re human!), there are small investments we can make today that make things a lot less cloudy and give us a much better chance at making the decisions we’ll be proud of a year (or twenty) down the road. Imperfect data is much better than no data – and can save a fortune in regret later on.

You can’t figure it all out, but you can learn enough to be proud, confident and excited about taking the next big step – the one that can too easily be put off for a lifetime.

Because spinning your tires in indecision is still making a decision – to do nothing. It’s just not one you’ll likely be happy with later on.