Give it 3-6 months

Experiment to see if you want to stick with something long-term

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to try things for three to six months.
If you are not sure about something, aim to do

(00:24):
it for a trial period and see how it goes.
Few things have to be done forever, but you also
want to give things enough runway that they can take
off if they are going to in big time. My
new book about time management, I talk about being open

(00:47):
to serendipity. Creating a rich and full life means being
open to new opportunities and adventures and relationships, some of
which could turn out to be fantastic. Of course, it's
hard to know what will be a good use of
your time and what won't be. You might join a

(01:07):
volunteer group looking to make more friends and find it
tough going. You may take a pottery class and feel
frustrated with the work. You might start a newsletter hoping
to build a platform about a book idea, but it
can feel like a slog. You don't really know if
something is the right thing to do or not, so

(01:28):
why not try it as an experiment. You want to
give things enough time to get somewhere, But you also
don't want to feel oppressed that you're going to have
to do something forever. You should feel free to pull
the plug if you want after enough time, so give
things three to six months. When you start new projects,

(01:51):
you can explicitly say to yourself that you will go
all in for three to six months, and then you
will evaluate is anyone reading your newsletter or perhaps the
overall readership isn't great, but certain posts get a ton
of engagement. This is good information to know, too, and
it wasn't a waste of time to figure that out.

(02:13):
If you decide to try running, you could try running
for six months and see how it goes. It definitely
takes a few weeks for running to feel comfortable, but
by six months in you will be over a lot
of that and regularly running a few miles at a
time if you want. At that point you can evaluate

(02:33):
if you enjoy it more than other forms of exercise,
or if all things considered, you'd like to keep doing
pilates classes instead. I find three to six months is
a long enough period of time that you can really
try things out. Some stuff takes longer and some probably
takes less, but this is a good enough amount of

(02:57):
time that daily mishaps are absorbed into the overall experience.
On the other hand, you can see the finish line.
It doesn't feel infinite. If you really find yourself not
happy with how things are going, you can decide that
come December you will stop doing the thing guilt free.

(03:19):
It will be December before long. In many cases, people
quit things that could have worked out if they'd stuck
with it. In many cases, a little bit more resilience
and discipline would be wise. There are good returns to
not getting distracted too early. On the other hand, we

(03:43):
don't need to stick with things forever. So if there
is something you are thinking of trying, see if you
can structure the project to do it for three to
six months, you will learn a lot and may have
something new and wonderful in your life. Or if not,
you haven't wasted much time and you have probably learned something.

(04:06):
If you pay attention, like at least what you don't like.
Often that is worth knowing too. In the meantime, this
is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
most of our time. Thanks for listening to before breakfast.

(04:33):
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback. You can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(04:55):
listen to your favorite shows.