New year, new you. Right?

Not so fast. You’ve got to take it step by step. Just because it’s the start of a new year doesn’t mean you can flip a switch and move into the next career or role you want to pursue. As the year ends, I’ve been catching up with friends, and one of the topics is how to operate in a time of transition. We define a transition as a period where we’re looking to switch into a new role or career, but we aren’t exactly sure how things will work.

It may seem like everyone has their careers figured out, but most of us don’t. This is why we need a transition, or testing period, to see if it is really what we want.

Want to open a bakery? If the closest experience you’ve had to run a bakery is as a consumer buying the pastries and eating them, I would highly recommend you run other tests before committing your time and resources to start this new business.

How else can I test if I like running a bakery without actually running a bakery, you ask? Well, here are some steps to get you started:

1. Take baking lessons—does your baking taste any good?

2. Get a job at a small bakery and try every position there, whether it be serving customers, preparing ingredients, baking, handling catering and custom orders…whatever is required to run the business.

3. Get a job at a big(ger) bakery. If your small business takes off, it’ll evolve into a bigger business, so you should get a sense of how larger businesses in the industry operate.

4. Listen to your co-workers. What do they love and hate about the job?

That’s an example of the hospitality/restaurant industry. How about for other industries? A lot of people are enamoured by the glamour of the fashion industry, the sexiness of doing branding in the marketing industry, or big money in investment banking.

Are these industries really as attractive as they are made out to be? Only you would know after you road-test some of the roles in the industry. For example, there are many facets to the fashion industry. You could be a merchandiser, buyer, publicist, fashion magazine editor, stylist, designer…the list goes on. If being a brand manager is your dream job, would you still want the job after discovering that numbers and data play a big role in how you build strategies instead of just creating a sexy brand that looks good?

The point is some careers may look appealing from the outside looking in, but until you know what the day-to-day is like, and experience the roles through a test period, you won’t know for sure. Sometimes even after you test things out, you can’t say for sure if you will stay in a new career or job for years.

It’s not a one-day or one-week activity to figure out whether or not you would enjoy a different career. It’s important to go into your test period knowing that the perfect job will never turn out to be the perfect job, because there will be some components of the job or industry you won’t like. Maybe you love creating the recipes, setting up the pastry displays, creating the marketing material, and serving customers but dislike the administrator components of the business. This is something you can offload to someone with that expertise, so it’s not a dealbreaker. However, if you don’t like the long hours of running a restaurant business, then it’s probably not for you. Maybe there’s a role somewhere where you can be a pastry recipe creator instead or even a cookbook author where you share your recipes.

It takes time and commitment to test things out. The key thing is to set clear expectations of what you are hoping to test out and what kinds of results would tell you that it’s going to work (or not). It’s much better to find out if a potential career is for you during this transition period than when you are fully committed to a new bakery or a three-year contract. And if it doesn’t work? Then on to the next! At least you saved a few year of your time you could have potentially dedicated to a career you wouldn’t have enjoyed.