How to experiment your way to a life you love

This year, instead of limiting yourself to one shot at making a wholesale New Year’s change, what if you resolved to make it a year of experiments?

The idea is simple. Each month, take something you want to incorporate or explore – say, meditating, or visualization, or cutting out sugar – and make it your experiment for the month.

Do each experiment with the attitude that you’re going to explore it for one month and see what happens. See how it affects your life. See if it does what you’ve read it’s going to do. Make your life a learning lab. Take what works, leave what doesn’t.

Instead of gritting your teeth and resolving to make a permanent change, you simply say, “What would happen if I ____ for a month?” For example, what would happen if you:

• Exercised 5 days a week?
• Wrote a daily gratitude journal?
• Told your partner something you appreciate about them every day?
• Wrote down something new you appreciate about yourself each day?
• Stopped eating sugar?
• Asked, “What’s good here?” on a regular basis?
• Made your morning commute a mindfulness practice?
• At the end of each day, told a family member or friend (at least) one good thing that happened that day?
• Stayed hydrated by drinking enough water?
• Went on a news fast?
• Committed to no complaining?

The thing I love about one-month experiments is that they are big enough to notice their impact, but not so big that their sheer size makes it feel daunting to stick with it.

Experimentation isn’t a rigid approach. It’s being curious, jumping in and seeing what’s there. You don’t have to grasp for positive results. They’ll either come or they won’t.

Depending on what you’re exploring, any given experiment may or may not have an impact on your life. But taken together over the course of a year, the cumulative potential could be huge.

Imagine simply making it a habit to do a different experiment each month. That’s TWELVE experiments a year! Now imagine that, to be conservative, half of those e experiments don’t have much of a long-lasting effect. Math whiz that I am, I can tell you that that means there are six experiments that do.

And now, imagine doing that every year for the next ten years. Think that would make a difference in your life? Compare that to the cumulative impact of all the New Year’s resolutions you’ve made over the last ten years!

The beauty of this approach is that a) it’s a lot easier to stick with something for a month than for the rest of your life, b) it gives the results of the experiments you do time to evolve and weave their way into your life (or not), and c) there is zero pressure for any individual experiment to “work.”

It also gives you the perfect container for coming back to your positive change exploration on a regular basis. And the more you stay engaged with a proactive approach to positive change, the more potential it has to become a habitual approach to life.

Here are some suggestions to help you make the most of your experiments.

1. Tell someone else.Let others know that you’re doing a one-month experiment. The more public you are about your intention, the more likely you will be to stick with it the entire time.
2. Involve someone else.Find a partner who is up for doing their own one-month experiment and connect regularly to share how it’s going. Or maybe even make it a year-long group.
3. Be curious.Stop and notice along the way. Pay attention to whatever effect(s) it seems to be having. Ask yourself questions about the experience. What (if anything) are you learning along the way? What’s working? What’s not working?
4. Keep a journal.Especially for the experiments that don’t inherently involve keeping a journal, make it a regular habit to jot down any observations, insights, or experiences that come out of them.
5. Widen the scope.As your experiment unfolds, dive in deeper and see what others have to say on the topic. Develop both experiential knowledge and a broader perspective. Feel free to skip this part if it adds too much weight to the experiment. Remember – you want to keep it light, easy, and doable!
6. Carry it forward.When you’re done with your experiment, ask yourself “What do I want to carry forward from this? What do I want to continue to incorporate into my life? How is this relevant moving forward?” You might decide that you want to make all or part of some experiments a regular habit in your life, and others you may decide didn’t amount to much. Take what works, let go of what doesn’t.

How about you?

What experiments come to mind for you? I would love to hear your ideas. What experiments would you like to try in the coming year?

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