Maybe it starts with a little voice—the one that says you should be doing more. So you squeeze in emails while brushing your teeth. Podcasts replace silence. Rest becomes something you have to earn.
Sure, it feels like momentum…at first. But eventually, it feels like drowning in your own ambition.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff knows the feeling. As a former Googler turned neuroscientist, she watched her own life get swallowed by KPIs and calendar invites. Then she walked out and wrote Tiny Experiments, a book that makes a wildly radical suggestion:
Maybe the smallest, messiest, most curious parts of you are the ones worth following.
Watch her interview on Mindvalley Book Club with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani:
Why we’re burned out, overstimulated, and still unsatisfied, according to Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Raise your hand if you’ve done the whole date by 25, married by 30, and kids by 32. Or manager by 30, director by 35, VP by 40. Or wake up at 5 a.m., meditate, journal, cold plunge, gratitude list, green smoothie, run—all done before 7 a.m.
And raise your hand if you feel like you’re over it.
We need to fill all of these boxes with as much stuff as possible in order to feel like we’re living a meaningful, successful, productive life.
— Anne-Laure Le Cunff, neuroscientist and author of Tiny Experiments
These, as Anne-Laure points out, are linear goals, and they’re one of the reasons so many of us feel like we’re failing. The thing is, we’ve all been fed the same story: if you’re not moving upward, you’re falling behind.
“Linear goals are based on the outdated idea that in order to be successful, you need to have a very clear vision of where you’re going,” Anne-Laure tells Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani in the Mindvalley Book Club interview, “and then you just need to work really, really hard to get there.”
There are a lot of downsides when you cling to linear goals:
- For one, it creates fear that if you fail, the whole thing falls apart;
- Secondly, it leads to toxic productivity: the compulsive need to stay busy, even at the expense of your well-being, identity, or health; and
- Finally, it creates unhealthy social comparison, where you measure self-worth against others’ achievements in a way that fuels self-doubt, inadequacy, or shame.
In fact, one large study found that when people compare themselves to others on social media, especially if it makes them feel bad, it can lead to more burnout at work and at home. The more pressure they feel to “do it all,” the worse the burnout gets.
Then, somewhere along the way, ambition stopped being yours.
How we got here
What people tell us is one thing. But what we tell ourselves is another.
“We are natural storytellers,” says Anne-Laure. We love clean, upward narratives. We admire the person who set a five-year plan and stuck to it. And we assume success works like that—linear, logical, and perfectly backdated.
But here’s the reality check from her: “Everything keeps on changing all the time. You keep on changing all the time.”
When life refuses to follow the script, we don’t question the plot. We blame ourselves for not being more disciplined, more focused, more… everything.
One of the biggest culprits for this is our obsession with time. Specifically, Kronos, the ancient Greek god of measured time, which moves forward in hours, dates, and deadlines. That’s the time we try to master with calendars, schedules, and productivity hacks.
“We need to fill all of these boxes with as much stuff as possible in order to feel like we’re living a meaningful, successful, productive life,” Anne-Laure says. That’s linear culture for you.
What’s more, under this chronic stress that hustling delivers in spades, research shows our internal goal system starts to collapse. We stop reaching for long-term, meaningful end goals (like creativity, growth, or connection) and default to short-term survival: check the box, hit the target, don’t fall behind.
How “tiny experiments” can change everything: Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s 3 top tips
“Uncertainty has so much to teach us,” says Anne-Laure. That discomfort, though, often triggers fear, so we chase any clear outcome just to feel in control.
“But there is another way: the experimental way.”
So if you’re searching for a summary of Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure, this is the heart of it. And this is where the mindset begins.
1. Get curious instead of clear
“You can actually be successful without knowing where you’re going,” says Anne-Laure. “This is what scientists do all the time… Instead of starting from a fixed outcome like you do in linear goals, they just start from a place of curiosity.”
This is the foundation of a “tiny experiment” mindset. A “What happens if I try this?” rather than a “Where is this going?”
That’s the difference between clarity and curiosity. The former is high-pressure, but the latter is low-stakes. And it’s a direct challenge to questions we’ve been trained to answer: “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” Or “What’s your mission and vision?” Or “How will you measure success?”
When you let yourself experiment, the outcome informs you about what works, what doesn’t, what feels right, and where to go next. Essentially, you’re gathering data.
But don’t think you need to do something major like pivot careers, start a company, or move to Bali tomorrow. Anne-Laure suggests trying something new in a small, curious way. This could be something as simple as…
- Taking a class just because it lights you up,
- Writing three sentences a day and see what wants to be said, or
- Saying yes to a project even if you’re not sure you’re “ready.”
When you stop waiting for clarity, you start building momentum. And momentum has a way of revealing what clarity never could.
2. Start small and keep it light
Have goals, they say. Make them audacious, they say. And that all sounds good in theory, but sometimes, they feel impossible to carry out. Especially when you’re already stretched thin.
Anne-Laure suggests trying something…well, tiny. Here are a few examples:
- No need to meditate for 20 minutes a day (just because the latest TikTok influencer said so). Instead, sit on your couch for two minutes with your eyes closed and ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”
- Feel like deleting all your apps for dopamine fasting? Instead, try putting your phone in another room for an hour and see how your focus shifts.
- Committing to a 30-day fitness plan can be mentally overwhelming. Instead, do a bodyweight exercise for a few minutes a day.
- Networking with 20 people on LinkedIn might send you into a nervous spiral. Instead, send a quick voice note to one person you admire and see if it sparks a conversation.
- Trying to “fix” your sleep routine with five new biohacks? Instead, turn off screens 20 minutes earlier and notice if your body winds down more naturally.
That’s basically the premise of Tiny Experiments.
Whatever you’re trying to change or build, Anne-Laure encourages you to ask yourself what the smallest and simplest version looks like. Choose something you can actually follow through on without ending up frustrated or self-critical.
Like one peer-reviewed mini-review found that small, incremental changes play a key role in forming sustainable habits. Over time, they reshape behavior without overwhelming the nervous system.
That’s how real change sneaks in: quietly, gently, and just small enough to stick.
3. Redefine what success means
What does success mean to you? Getting into top schools? Hitting relationship milestones? Landing the job?
“We have this very binary definition of success,” Anne-Laure points out. We see it as win or lose, productive or lazy, on track or falling behind…
The thing is, being more ambitious doesn’t always make you feel more successful in your career, according to research. In fact, too much ambition can sometimes leave you feeling less satisfied.
As Anne-Laure says, “Success is nonlinear.”
That means it doesn’t come with perfect timing, neat chapters, or five-year plans that actually go to plan. Instead, it’s shaped by what energizes you now, not by what once looked good on paper.
“This is how people become successful,” she adds. “Not by clinging to linear goals but by embracing the fact that success is messy and a lot of it is unpredictable.”
Fuel your mind
Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World by Anne-Laure Le Cunff is a shift in how we relate to time, effort, and who we think we need to be. (Disclosure: This includes an affiliate link. If you make a purchase through it, the Mindvalley Book Club may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)
But she’s not the only voice changing the conversation.
At Mindvalley Book Club, host Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani brings you personal growth and business books that go deeper than inspiration. These are books that help you rethink the frameworks you’ve outgrown, reconnect with the parts of yourself that got lost in the noise, and take smarter steps forward without the burnout.
Every week, you’ll get:
- A shortlist of standout new releases chosen for clarity and impact,
- Live, unfiltered conversations with authors like Anne-Laure, and
- Real takeaways you can apply, even if you never finish the book.
You can join the Mindvalley Book Club for free. Think of it as…a tiny experiment.
Welcome in.
