Scared the new thing might be a waste of time? Even a dead end teaches you the map.

An attempt that goes nowhere still removes a possibility, and removing possibilities is most of how anybody finds the right one. You now know that path does not lead where you hoped, which is knowledge you could not have bought any other way. The only genuinely wasted time is the kind that produces no information at all.

Give the uncertain thing a fixed trial rather than an open ended one. Six weeks, one term, one season. Decide in advance what would tell you to stop, so that stopping becomes a result instead of a failure.