From abandoned new year resolutions to yet-to-be-visited bucket list travel destinations, failing to achieve the ambitious goals we set for ourselves is a universal experience.
But what if we’re simply thinking about goal-setting the wrong way?
A recent article (21 June 2026) in the Guardian suggests that approaching lifestyle goals with an “experimental mindset” may be the key not only to setting goals that actually stick, but also to identifying the goal that’s right for you in the first place, rather than a copy-paste of something that might have worked for somebody else.
Read on to learn more about how adopting an experimental mindset and designing tiny experiments can help you see genuine results.
Why your approach to goals might need a rethink
Part of the reason you might be finding it difficult to follow through on your goals is that some situations lend themselves far more readily to a traditional goal-setting approach than others.
For example, let’s imagine a scenario in which you set yourself a goal of saving up £50,000 within the next two years to put down a deposit on a house. This is a situation with a clear target (£50,000) and a straightforward means of achieving that target (saving up).
The problem is that lots of important things in life aren’t quite so clear-cut, and setting a target isn’t going to help you very much if you’re not sure what you’re aiming for.
Perhaps you want to get healthy, but you’re not too sure what “healthy” actually means for you. Or maybe you want to change careers, but you don’t know what job you’re best suited to.
These are situations that may not be the best fit for a traditional approach to goal-setting.
But maybe an experimental approach could be the way forward.
How to run a tiny experiment
The experimental mindset might sound complicated and scientific, but it’s really just about testing different approaches, paying attention to the results, and not being afraid to change course if that’s what the evidence suggests you should do.
Essentially, instead of committing to one big goal, you run an experiment, or a series of experiments.
Again, the word “experiment” might sound a little off-putting, conjuring up long-suppressed memories of Bunsen burners and school science projects, but when you break it down to its constituent parts, it’s really just a simple formula: action + duration.
In other words, “I will do X for Y”.
That’s all an experiment really is.
So, if your goal is to improve your health, instead of setting a generic goal – for instance, a specific amount of weight you want to drop, or a particular fitness goal you want to achieve – design a series of small-scale, time-limited, exploratory experiments that can help you along the road to achieving that goal. For example:
- I will walk for 20 minutes every lunchtime for two weeks.
- I will stop eating after 8 pm for three weeks.
- I will go to bed at the same time every night for one month.
Then, at the end of each experiment, ask yourself not whether you succeeded, but what you learned. From there, you can continue to develop an approach to wellness that isn’t borrowed from someone else, but works for you.
Why an experimental mindset can revolutionise your approach to setting goals
There are a wide range of benefits associated with this approach to goal-setting.
Most importantly, it allows you to try different things and work out whether they’re a good fit for you. By continually running tiny experiment after tiny experiment, you can genuinely build an approach to whatever you’re testing – from wellness to other lifestyle goals – that is fine-tuned to your specific needs and preferences.
In other words, if a traditional goal-setting mindset is like squeezing yourself into a one-size-fits-all garment, an experimental mindset is like having one tailored to your exact measurements.
Furthermore, this approach is a great way to avoid falling into the trap of jettisoning all your progress if you have one minor slip-up. For example, if you’re using a traditional goal-setting technique, not reaching your target could be considered a failure.
However, this isn’t the case with the experimental approach. If one experiment doesn’t work, that’s not a problem; it’s an opportunity to learn. If anything, it’s a good thing, because that failure is telling you something about your body or mindset that you can incorporate into your future goal-setting experiments.
Finally, the experimental mindset focuses on continuous learning and development. Rather than the idea of setting a goal, achieving it, and then seeing the credits roll – mission accomplished – this approach encourages you to continually iterate and look for opportunities to improve and prosper.
In doing so, personal growth becomes an ongoing process, rather than a destination with a fixed endpoint.