Designing Experiments: Learning Your Way Forward
What if the next step in your transition isn't making the perfect plan, but designing a small experiment? Discover how thoughtful exploration can reveal the clarity you're seeking.
Navigate Change Framework™
Design Your Change Series | Part 3
If you've ever walked through a major transition, you know how easy it is to believe every decision must be permanent. Should I accept the new job? Should we move? Should I retire? Should I start the business? Should I return to school? Should I stay...or should I go?
The weight of those questions can become overwhelming because we often assume we're making one irreversible decision that will determine the rest of our lives. But what if there's another way to think about transition? What if, instead of trying to design the perfect plan, we learned to design thoughtful experiments?
When I use the word "experiment," I don't mean something careless or risky. I mean a small, intentional step that helps us pay attention to how God may be leading. Experiments aren't about avoiding commitment. They're about creating opportunities to learn.
Throughout Scripture, we often see God revealing His direction gradually rather than all at once. He invites people to take faithful steps, and those steps become part of how His purposes unfold. I believe that often happens in our own lives as well.
Instead of waiting until every question is answered, we begin exploring. We pay attention. We notice what gives life. We notice what drains us. We notice where our gifts, values, relationships, and opportunities begin to align.
That doesn't happen by thinking alone. It happens by engaging.
An experiment might look like:
Volunteering with an organization before pursuing a new career.
Taking on a consulting project before launching a business.
Shadowing someone whose work interests you.
Taking a class in an area you've always wondered about.
Having coffee with someone living the kind of life you're considering.
Serving in a ministry before assuming it's your long-term calling.
None of those require you to have your future completely figured out. They're simply ways of learning.
One of the questions I often ask coaching clients is this: "What could you try that would teach you something?"
Notice the difference. I'm not asking, "What lifelong commitment should you make?" I'm asking, "What can you learn?"
Learning has a way of reducing fear. It replaces assumptions with experience. It replaces imagination with reality. And sometimes it confirms what we sensed all along. Other times, it redirects us toward something better. Either outcome is a gift.
One of the reasons I love coaching during seasons of transition is that people often discover they don't need someone to tell them what decision to make. They need someone to help them notice what they're learning as they walk. That's where clarity deepens. Not before the experiment. But because of it.
Even when an experiment doesn't lead where we expected, it often reveals something important about our gifts, our values, or the direction God is inviting us to pursue. Perhaps that's why designing your change isn't really about creating the perfect future. It's about becoming a curious learner who trusts God enough to keep walking.
Responding to the Invitation
Think about one area of your life where you're waiting for certainty before moving forward.
Now ask yourself:
What is one small experiment I could try over the next month?
What might I learn by taking that step?
What would success look like if my goal wasn't certainty—but greater clarity?
Then choose one experiment. Not because you're trying to force the future. But because you're willing to let God teach you as you walk. Sometimes the smallest experiments become the beginning of life's biggest transitions.
-Tim
P.S. If you're feeling stuck between where you've been and what comes next, coaching can help you design thoughtful experiments that fit your values, your season of life, and your sense of God's leading. You don't have to have the whole plan—you simply need a place to process, explore, and move forward with wisdom.
Clarity Isn't the Finish Line
What if clarity isn't the destination you've been waiting for—but the place where faithful action begins? Discover why God often reveals His direction one step at a time and how you can begin living the invitation He's already placed before you.
Navigate Change Framework™
Design Your Change | Part 1
Over the past several weeks, we've been exploring what it means to Discern what's happening beneath the surface and Discover what matters most in a season of transition. Now we begin the next stage of the journey.
Eventually, another question begins to emerge. "Now what?" This is where many people become stuck. They're waiting for complete certainty before taking action. They're hoping for a detailed roadmap before taking the first step. They're afraid of making the wrong decision.
But what if that isn't how God most often leads? I think of Abraham. When God called him, He didn't hand him a detailed itinerary for the years ahead. He simply said,
"Go from your country... to the land I will show you." (Genesis 12:1)
Notice the invitation. Not, "Go to the land I've already explained in detail." But... "…the land I will show you."
Abraham was invited into a journey of trust where purpose would unfold over time. The destination became clearer as Abraham continued walking…and sometimes stumbling… with God.
Perhaps our own transitions are often like that. We long for certainty, but God offers something different: enough clarity for the next faithful step. That's why I believe clarity isn't the finish line. It's the starting line.
The next stage of transition is what I call Design. Design isn't about creating the perfect life plan or predicting exactly how the future will unfold. It's about responding to transition’s invitation with openness, wisdom, and courage.
Instead of asking, "How can I be certain?" we begin asking, "What is the next faithful step?”
That next step might be:
A conversation you've been postponing.
An informational interview.
A coaching conversation.
A volunteer opportunity.
A new rhythm or boundary.
A small experiment that teaches you something you couldn't discover by thinking alone.
None of these require complete certainty. They simply require a willingness to move forward with an open hand and a learning posture.
Design helps us begin living the invitation. Clarity doesn’t always precede action. Sometimes it comes because we were willing to take the next faithful step.
As we begin this new series, my hope is that you'll resist the pressure to figure everything out. Instead, simply ask, "What invitation is God asking me to begin living today?" Because…
Discern helps us recognize the invitation.
Discover helps us understand the invitation.
Design helps us begin living the invitation—with an open hand, a listening heart, and a willingness to learn as we go.
Responding to the Invitation
Rather than trying to solve your entire future this week, simply practice taking one faithful step. Spend a few quiet moments reflecting on these questions:
What has become clear enough that I can begin acting on it?
Where am I waiting for certainty when God may simply be inviting me to trust Him with the next step?
What one conversation, experiment, or opportunity could help me move forward with greater clarity?
Then choose just one. Not because you know exactly where it will lead, but because you're willing to trust God in the journey. Small, faithful steps often become the path God uses to reveal what's next.
-Tim
P.S. If this resonates with where you are today, I'd love to encourage you personally. Designing the next season of your life doesn't require having all the answers. It helps to have a thoughtful companion who can ask good questions, help you notice what God may be stirring, and support you as you take your next faithful step. If that's where you find yourself, I'd be honored to walk alongside you.
Expressions of Faith
Trying to reach your goals and wondering where faith comes in? Smaller yet more consistent splashes maintain the ripple effect more than a big splash every once in a while.
In the world of life coaching, action steps are expressions of commitment to our goals. No coaching session should end without some kind of intentional action toward a stated goal. Coaching clients who do their homework and follow through reach higher levels of growth and success.
Our faith works the same way. It becomes useless and lifeless without expression.
Faith expressing itself in love, the apostle Paul says, is a clear sign that we are allowing God to rule our hearts. When I was younger, these expressions of faith were more life-altering because they were big decisions that would forever change the course of my life: going to college, choosing my life partner, landing on a career choice, moving my family overseas...
As I age and mature, however, I'm learning that the smaller, seemingly less significant choices have just as great, if not greater impact over time. And guess what? It takes more faith to live in obscurity, doing the right thing even when nobody around us notices. Smaller yet more consistent splashes maintain the ripple effect more than a big splash every once in a while.
Think about it. What do you want to accomplish? How can you reach your goal(s) through consistent and intentional choices? What kind of expression can you give to your faith today?