Stop Setting Goals and Start Doing This Instead — Tamsin Simounds on The Experiment Mindset

You're Not Stuck. You're Just Using the Wrong Method.

You've read the books. Done the courses. Set the goals. Built the plan. And somehow you're still repeating the same patterns. Sound familiar?

In this episode I'm talking with Tamsin Simounds — leadership coach, behaviour change expert, and author of The Experiment Mindset — about why the problem was never your motivation. It was your method.

Tamsin grew up watching her high-achieving dad slowly unravel behind closed doors — and then found herself repeating the patterns.

That recognition sent her on a decade-long journey into neuroscience, psychology, and behaviour change — and eventually to writing a book that challenges everything we think we know about how growth actually happens.

This conversation goes deep on the gap between knowing and doing, why traditional goal-setting keeps ambitious people stuck, what your brain does when you're running on empty, and the small but radical shift that changes everything.

If you've ever wondered why you can't seem to get out of your own way despite doing all the right things — this one is for you.

In this episode we cover:

• Why reading books and listening to podcasts is actually high-quality procrastination
• The Feedback/Action Matrix — and which quadrant most high achievers are stuck in
• What the body budget really means, and why you can't grow when you're depleted
• The difference between progress and growth (and why busy people confuse them)
• How to design a real-life experiment — without blowing up your career
• Why perfectionism isn't about standards

FAQs:

What is the Experiment Mindset?
It's a framework developed by Tamsin Simounds that shifts the way you approach change — from chasing outcomes to gathering data. Instead of setting a big goal, you run small, low-risk experiments to learn what actually works for you. The goal isn't to win. The goal is to learn.

How is the Experiment Mindset different from a growth mindset?
As one of Tamsin's audience members put it: the growth mindset is the cake, but you don't know how to eat it. The Experiment Mindset carves it up and hands you a piece. It's a growth mindset in action — broken down into steps small enough to take.

What are the Three Levers of Change?
Environment (the people, places and prompts around you), physiology (your body's energy budget — sleep, nutrition, movement), and psychology (your identity, beliefs and mindset). All three need to be working. If one is broken, it limits everything else.

Chapter Markers:

• 0:00 — Introduction and welcome
• 2:30 — Tamsin's story
• 8:00 — Her dad's decline and finding the gift in the tough stuff
• 14:00 — Growing up as the high achiever who didn't know who she was without the accolades
• 20:00 — Modern Psychology — and becoming a different person
• 27:00 — Horizon Setting: knowing what you want vs chasing the next tap on the shoulder
• 33:00 — 2020: The perfect storm
• 40:00 — Why you can't grow when you're running on empty
• 44:00 — The Three Levers
• 47:00 — Drowning in insight and starving for change
• 51:00 — What a real life experiment actually looks like
• 55:00 — The piece of cake
• 57:00 — The $40k lesson in why traditional goal-setting is a trap
• 60:00 — Perfectionism as identity protection
• 62:00 — The executive who changed her life without changing her job
• 63:30 — What's next for Tamsin — and the surprising product startup launching alongside the book

Links and Resources:

The Book

The Experiment Mindset by Tamsin Simounds — available now on Amazon and Booktopia

Website - Tamsin Simounds

The Undies - Jump Proof activewear

Find more Danielle 

The Chocolate Bar Life by Danielle Colley

The website - daniellecolley.com.au