In the world of product development, after learning about what kinds of progress customers want to make in their lives, successful designers build prototypes to test their early ideas. They experiment with multiple rough mock-ups that they can change easily.

Career choices benefit from experimentation, too. As we say in our book Job Moves, smart job switchers consciously hire their next job so they can make progress in their careers. The point of the prototypes isn’t to find a job at this stage. It’s about clarifying the trade-offs you’re willing—and unwilling—to make to get the progress you want. Learning is the goal here.

As you “mock up” an array of potential futures, these should range from roles you hope exist somewhere out there to those you’re actively considering to novel paths you don’t know much about but are interested in exploring. In our experience, people often want to stop with just one plausible prototype. But creating “the one” is exceedingly difficult. What single role could be perfect in every way? And it sets you up for disappointment later when real-world options don’t precisely line up with expectations and you don’t know how to make trade-offs to unlock progress.