Take this approach to your life and you’ll literally never fail
Levelling up doesn’t need to be so intimidating. You don’t have to be daunted by the gap that exists between your reality and your ideal. By simply using small easy-to-do experiments we can improve our lives and find our own personal path that works.
It starts with motivation
You’ve watched a video, read an article or listened to a podcast and you’re feeling fired up.
It’s time to renew your goals and level up, challenge yourself and grow into your next best version of you.
We get excited about the possibilities of who we could be, but when it comes to actually getting started that’s a different issue.
Confusion, overwhelm and general limiting beliefs even stop us from taking any action.
But this is because we’re looking at the journey wrong.
Rather than make a sprint to the end destination, run out of gas/ hit a brick wall and quit, we need to take a more slower and steadier approach if we’re going to have any meaningful change happen.
Rather than rushing on any given path, by being slower and steadier we allow ourselves more time to actually analyze and see what works for us and what doesn’t.
And the best framework for this is one of simple experimentation.
The power of experiments
Experiments are great for so many reasons. Here are just a few…
- Unattaches you from the end outcome. You’re no longer concerned with the end goal as much. You know it will come. It’s just a simple case of seeing all actions as a test.
- Forces an objective mindset. You learn to put your biases, fallacies and feeling all to one side and instead of aiming to be right, you now aim to find out what is true.
- Helps remove repeatability. Experimenting will give you clear data as to what works and what doesn’t. When you get these insights you now know something you didn’t know before and now you don’t have to waste time doing something you’ve done before.
- Allows identification of hidden patterns. Running these experiments gives you awareness into patterns around your behavior that you previously wouldn’t have known before.
With these advantages from experimenting it’s now a case of actually forming an experimental practice. So let’s look at that next.
Don’t look at the summit of the mountain, just look at taking one step.
Introducing the micro experiment mindset
As with most things in life it’s not about how you start, it’s just important that you do. And the best way to start is always to start small. And if the journey is a really daunting one, then no problem, we start even smaller, we start micro.
So let’s look at how we can practically begin our micro experiments step by step.
1. Start with one area.
Pick one area that you’d love to change about yourself. Don’t get greedy with multi-focus. It doesn’t work.
2. Identify the end outcome.
Think about what the end will look like. Knowing where you need to go can motivate and inspire you and will keep you focused.
3. Select one micro habit that leads to the outcome.
Break down the process you need into the smallest possible step. Make it so easy that you can’t possibly NOT do it.
4. Design a simple trigger-action system.
Once you’ve got your habit, it’s time to set it up. This means putting in triggers that will remind you to do the habit on cue. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just tie the action to something you already do. The idea is to make it easy for you to start so you don’t even have to take up so much time thinking about it.
Time for personalized analysis
Now it’s time to see what worked by asking yourself honest simple questions after your experiments.
At this stage I bet you’re expecting me to advise you take a hyper objective rational approach, and while you can I’m not gonna do that.
I recommend you take into account your feelings around it too.
When looking at your feelings, it’d be a good idea to ask yourself things like…
- Did I enjoy/gain something from it?
- If I didn’t, what could I do differently to make it enjoyable/rewarding?
- Was it too easy/difficult to do?
- What can I do to alter the challenge level?
- If I was to form this experiment into a habit, how could I turn this into a system?
There are no real rules around questioning yourself around your feelings, just make sure everything is aligned.
Alignment is the key idea. Don’t become a slave to either extreme of efficiency or emotions.
When you go to hard in search of efficiency and objectivity at the detriment of your feelings, you’ll likely wear yourself down and lose the forest for the trees and put needless pressure on yourself leading to other areas of your life suffering.
But equally don’t go the other way and stay in a comfort zone because it feels good and not push yourself enough to make the experiment work at all.
Summary
- Choose to be an experimenter when it comes to your goals.
- Take a micro experimentation approach.
- Have a singular focus of improvement.
- Understand what the end result needs to look like and work backwards until you can find an action that is easy to do.
- Keep a simple trigger action system to make sure you can instantly do the habit without much thought.
- Take time to analyze, take into account your emotions as well as the data. Be aligned in your assessments.
So over to you now. Happy experimenting!
