Build your future self by iterating your identity today

When she retired from a storied gig at Netflix, Laura faced a yawning blank slate. She’d always thought leadership consulting was for extroverts, but her cue came from an offhand invitation: appear on a local tech meet-up panel. Despite sweaty palms, she emerged loving the discussion. Next came trial freelance gigs, then short-term in-house strategy work. Each month she tapped a new professional identity—journalist, advisor, artist—gauging her reactions. Some fizzled fast, others simmered into genuine passion.

It was messy at first—she’d swap resumes to reflect each persona, joke with friends about her ‘career ADD’—but every micro-experiment taught her volumes about her strengths and blind spots. She learned quickly that she thrived on collaborative problem solving far more than solitary writing. Her initial identity drafts morphed into a cohesive narrative: she was a strategy coach who used storytelling to drive change.

That messy journey—lots of false starts and free pivots—felt counterintuitive against the conventional ‘plan and stay the course’ advice. Yet each trial informed the next cast of identities she tried on, guiding her toward the right role. Months of short-term forays beat years of planning with no testing. Laura built her current consulting practice not by a singular master plan but by a series of attempts and course corrections, embodying the truth that “you discover who you are by seeing what you do.”

You’ve drafted your possible selves and carved out monthly experiments. Now it’s time to own them. Add each trial to your calendar as a fixed appointment, and treat it like your most important meeting. After your micro-experiment, block twenty minutes to journal candidly about what surprised you. Do this for the next three months, then review your notes and pick the identity that consistently felt energizing. That’s your next big move.