Permission to Be Unfinished

A five-part blog series: On books, uncertainty, and trusting what unfolds

Part one of five

The Door I Always Return To

Books, solitude, and the seasons of going inward

I love books. I learned to read when I was five, and since then, they have been my favorite way to explore worlds beyond my own.

That doesn't mean I'm a bookworm in the classic sense. Even as a child, I noticed a rhythm in myself, almost a strict cycle. Periods of intense reading would alternate with stretches when I wanted nothing more than to be outside, among people. Like waves. And eventually, always, there's a moment when I've had enough of the external exchange and feel the pull to retreat, to be alone again, to go back to the page.

That rhythm hasn't changed.

I still read around thirty books a year and keep a reading diary to reflect on them. And every once in a while, a book arrives that blows open a door I thought was closed for me. That moment always stuns me — a sharp mix of excitement and something close to fear. Is it really possible to try this? To live this way? To apply this to my own life?

I'm a learner by nature, but also an implementer. I don't study things purely for the pleasure of knowing. If I encounter an idea that can change me, stretch me, or make life better — and it resonates — I go for it. I also know that real change always comes with a price. Usually, it's time and effort. No meaningful transformation happens fast. Aside from a new haircut or a manicure.

Some books don't give answers. They change the questions you're brave enough to ask.

Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff didn't tell me what to do next. It helped me recognize what I'd already been doing without a name for it. But some of the ideas went further than that. They didn't just ask what I do. They asked how I relate to uncertainty itself.

In the next post, I'll share the ideas that challenged me — and how they collided with my own life in very real, imperfect ways. I'm still working through some of them.

A question before you go:

Do you notice rhythms in your own life, seasons of people, followed by seasons of quiet, or do you expect yourself to stay the same all the time?

Part two of five

Light Steps, Real Ground

Trying without promising forever

The first idea that stopped me was disarmingly simple: run tiny, low-risk experiments. Small actions over short periods are safer, more honest, and easier to sustain than big commitments, especially when you're trying something entirely new.

So I tried aerial arts.

I honestly thought it would be something like yoga with a swing. I bought a four-class trial package, a test, nothing more. By the second class, it was clear my arm strength was nowhere near sufficient. I simply couldn't do the exercises. I quit halfway through. A hint of shame crept in — that inner critic whispering, See? You failed.

But I reminded myself: I don't cry about not being an astronaut or a singer either. Capacity matters. Knowing what isn't yours is also data.

The second idea was to make a simple pact. Decide what, for how long, and why. "I'll try this for fourteen days and see what I learn." I made two longer commitments of my own.

The first: I bought a yoga swing for home and decided I'd hang upside down for five minutes a day, morning or evening. I'm still in progress. On average, it's every other day, and my hanging time is about 3.5 minutes. I know I'll reach five. I genuinely enjoy pretending I'm a bat.

The second commitment is French. I love the language, the culture, the food, the literature, and the films. Years ago, I built my French from scratch to an intermediate level, sparked by an intense course that started right after New Year's, while my daughter was just two months old. I can read, listen, recognize words, and hold simple conversations. But fluency kept slipping away. Practicality always interfered.

Last autumn, I saw a promotional offer for business-class tickets to Montreal and felt that familiar spark: we need to go. I bought the tickets. My daughter had just started French in her freshman year. I cannot allow myself to speak French worse than hers. So I found an app with fifteen-minute daily lessons and signed up. We'll see how it plays out. I have four months until the trip.

Somewhere between trying and stopping, something unexpected happens. The question shifts from "Did this work?" to "What did this reveal?"

That's when the ground moves — quietly, but permanently. I'm collecting these experiments not as advice, but as evidence.

Three questions:

What's something you've been curious about but afraid to commit to?

What would make it safe enough to try for just two weeks?

Where are you demanding certainty before allowing motion?

Part three of five

When the Axis Shifts

Ideas that loosened my grip on certainty

Some ideas don't expand your thinking. They tilt it. After the tilt, you can't quite recover the original angle, and you realize you didn't want to.

Three ideas from Tiny Experiments did this to me.

Stop treating life like a linear plan. You don't need a perfect long-term strategy. Rigid goals assume you already know who you'll be — and you don't.

No five- or ten-year vision? What about "you can't achieve anything without a goal"? This idea took me straight back to being sixteen, a high-school senior. My parents had already decided who I would become. My mother wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer. The summer before my final year, I worked as an entry-level member of the medical staff in a surgical department. That experience was clarifying in the most visceral way: I did not want to be a doctor.

Thankfully, I managed to insist on something else. That moment taught me something I've returned to many times since: you don't always know who you'll be, but you often know, with certainty, who you are not. That knowledge is worth protecting.

Treat life like a laboratory. You're not failing or succeeding — you're testing. Everything becomes data, not a verdict.

This describes the last five years of my life exactly: testing. A changed family situation. A swapped continent. New professions started from scratch. The phrase "you're not failing or succeeding" felt like balm on dry skin. Because when things don't work out, the frustration hits like a wave. The final thought, if you let it, is brutal: I'm a loser.

We are incredibly hard on ourselves. And that judgment, once made, becomes a verdict. Everything that follows depends on whether you find the strength to try again or retreat to a familiar path you already know will lead to dissatisfaction.

This mindset helped me leave my previous occupation without bitterness. I gave it an honest three years. Maybe I should have left earlier. But I tested, learned, and moved on. That framing changed everything about how I carry it.

Replace fear with curiosity. When you're curious, uncertainty becomes interesting instead of paralyzing.

I'm sociable and don't struggle to talk to strangers when I'm genuinely interested. At networking events where no one sparks that interest in me, I have to push myself. Coming from a culture where small talk is often considered pointless, those first seconds can feel hollow.

Once, someone suggested: be curious. I explained why that wasn't automatic for me.

She paused and said, "Then be curious about being curious."

She added, "Don't judge a book by its cover. Ask questions, you might surprise yourself."

I liked that. I'm still digesting it.

Once curiosity replaces fear, life stops asking for permission. You're no longer managing outcomes; you're listening for signals.

I don't have clean answers here, only better questions. And sometimes, that's the real shift.

Three questions:

Which of these feels hardest for you right now — letting go of long-term plans, quitting without shame, or allowing something to stay unfinished?

What belief about success are you still obeying out of habit?

Where could curiosity replace self-judgment?

Part four of five

The Unfinished Rooms

Curiosity, play, and what I haven't figured out yet

Not every idea arrives fully assembled. Some come as outlines, a doorway you can see through, a room you haven't yet entered. I want to be honest about that, because I think the half-understood insight is where the real work lives.

The next ideas from Tiny Experiments are still that way for me. Doors I've opened but haven't fully walked through.

Focus on learning, not outcomes. Ask, What did this teach me about myself? — not Did it work?

This one is new for me. I need time to reflect on past experiences and reframe them through this lens. I've spent most of my life measuring experiences by what they produced. Asking instead what they revealed requires a different kind of attention — slower, less certain, more generous toward myself than I'm used to being.

Build growth loops, not finish lines. Act, observe, reflect, adjust, repeat.

I understand this intellectually. I live it less consistently than I'd like. The finish line is a seductive thing. It promises you'll be done, that you'll get to rest. The loop asks you to stay in motion indefinitely, which requires a different relationship with rest itself. I'm working on that.

Allow play without productivity. Enjoyment is a valid result.

This is exactly how my daughter is wired — and watching her has been one of the more quietly instructive things in my life. She doesn't need her enjoyment to justify itself. It simply is. I grew up in a context where personal time felt like an indulgence, something earned rather than given. Unlearning that is slow work. But it's work I've started.

Let go of guilt, shame, and "shoulds." They belong to outdated success models.

I find this one harder than it sounds. The "shoulds" don't announce themselves. They arrive quietly, dressed as reasonable expectations. You should be further along. You should know this by now. You should need less time. Recognizing them as outdated rather than accurate — that's the practice. I'm in it.

The unfinished insight isn't a failure. It's an honest place to be. An open door is still progress.

Three questions:

What experiment did you quit too early — or too late?

Where are you still demanding a finish line instead of trusting a loop?

What would you do today if enjoyment alone were enough to justify it?

Part five of five

When the Path Appears

On trusting what unfolds

The last idea in Anne-Laure Le Cunff's list is the one that holds everything else together: trust emergence over control. Direction appears after action. Clarity follows movement — not the other way around.

I read that and felt something settle.

Because I had been living proof of it for years without quite naming it. I wanted to write a book about parenting for a long time. Years. I had the material, I had the intention — and I hesitated. The conditions were never quite right. I needed more time, a clearer plan, a better sense of how it would all come together.

And then there was a blackout. A quiet house. A charged laptop. The kind of accidental stillness that comes when the city goes dark, and the usual noise — the hum of appliances, the pull of the internet — simply stops. Control disappeared. And in that gap, something moved. I opened a document and started writing.

I didn't plan what followed, but once I moved, everything else emerged: a draft, an editor, a website, old ideas returning for revision, new ones asking to be born.

Not because I forced clarity. Because I allowed motion.

Looking back now through the lens of this book, I can see it everywhere in my own history. The choices that looked like detours were experiments. The things I walked away from were data. The continent I left, the professions I tried, the afternoon I sat down to write because there was nothing else to do in the dark — all of it was the path, even when I couldn't see it as one.

That may be the deepest thing Tiny Experiments offered me: not a new method, but a new way of reading my own past. Not a series of right and wrong turns. A series of experiments that taught me who I am, who I'm not, and what I'm ready to try next.

No master plan. No flawless execution. Just movement, curiosity, and permission to be unfinished.

It turns out that was always enough.

Maybe you've already been here. Maybe you're standing at the same threshold — some half-formed intention, some hesitation dressed as patience.

If so, I'd love to hear what you're learning. Not as answers. As shared signals along the way.

To close the series:

Where in your life are you still trying to control the outcome instead of trusting what's already unfolding?

What inconvenience in your life might actually be an invitation?

If clarity only arrives after movement — what's one small move you could make this week?

With intention,

Nadia Granski