Feeling stuck can be the absolute worst—you know you’re really not happy with your current circumstance, but also might not know where to start to get unstuck. With millions of “solutions” out there, there is no shortage of offerings for things to buy, diets to try, and quick-fix answers to your problems.
Most often, the answer requires nothing but a little bit of science—lifestyle experiments, to be exact.
Over the last few years, I’ve tested dozens of lifestyle experiments to see how the change would influence my and Amy’s life. In fact, you could call our rounds of decluttering and downsizing as several lifestyle experiments—ones that led to the eventual launch of this website and massively positive life changes over the following years.
So, sound interesting? Let’s get into it.
A lifestyle experiment is just like a science experiment, but instead of science, you’re experimenting with changing your lifestyle to sees how it may improve (or worsen) your circumstances. Once a conclusion is reached, you can choose whether to continue that lifestyle change.
life·style: the way a person or group lives.
ex·per·i·ment: a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.
In this post, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to successfully execute a lifestyle experiment and share some ideas of experiments to try. At the very bottom of the post, I’ll share some of my most successful lifestyle experiments that I’ve tried over the last few years.
Types of Lifestyle Experiments
Although there are infinite lifestyle experiments to try, they tend to fall into one of just a few categories. To quickly explain and demonstrate each type, I’ll use drinking coffee as an example. A single lifestyle experiment with drinking coffee might be any of the below:
1 / Add. Start drinking coffee.
2 / Remove. Stop drinking coffee.
3 / Swap. Drink tea instead of coffee
4 / Create. Only drink coffee that you brew yourself.
5 / Track. Record how many times per week you drink coffee.
It’s pretty straight-forward, right?
General Guidelines For Lifestyle Experiments
1 / Timeline
When designing your lifestyle experiment, you’ll want to choose a set period of time to perform the experiment at the end of which, you’ll make a decision based on the result. The timeline should be short enough that you can complete the experiment, but long enough that you’ll be able to fully experience any longer-term results from it.
I highly recommend a minimum of 21 days and a maximum of 90 days. Don’t try to swing for the fences especially if this is your first time trying lifestyle experiments. You can always extend the timeline longer than you’d like, but it’s not helpful to cut it short (unless the results are really negative and you need to stop). With that in mind, do not push yourself beyond what you’re comfortable with—if something isn’t working for you, stop and try something else.
2 / Difficulty
This might take some trial-and-error to get just right, but you want your experiment to be anywhere from easy to only slightly challenging. For example, if you barely exercise at all right now, your experiment should not be: Do 45 minutes of cardio 7 days per week for 90 days.
Keep it simple enough that you can stick to the experiment and really see the potential results at the end of it. It’s more important to complete the experiment than it is to try to totally revamp your life in the set time.
The idea is to continually make small changes, test new ideas for set periods of time, and let those changes compile as you grow. None of this is instant, so when starting out, make it easy!
3 / Trackable
If the experiment isn’t easily trackable, you don’t have much of an experiment. Whether in a notepad or your favorite smart phone app, you need to track your progress and record your findings along the way. Armed with that information, you’ll be ready to make a better decision when the time comes.
Results may come quickly, or not at all—and that’s okay. As my 7th grade science teacher Mr. Bradley taught me, “Even nothing is something.” Especially when removing something like a recurring expense, you may find that you feel no different, but end up saving the money you would have spent.
That kind of “nothing” is certainly something in my book!
4 / Isolation
While it doesn’t have to be anywhere near perfect, I wouldn’t recommend trying five different lifestyle experiments all at once. Isolate your results by choosing one at a time and see what results come. Trying too many things at once will not only exhaust you, but lead to confusing results at the end.
For example: was it drinking more water every day that made me feel better, or drinking less coffee? Just like a good science experiment, if you have too many variables you’ll never know what actually caused the positive change.
Lifestyle Experiment Ideas
Now that you have your lifestyle experiment pro-tips, it’s time to start designing your own. As you consider what lifestyle experiments to try, make sure you’re prioritizing safety first and do some research on any potential side effects before beginning your experiment.
Here’s a list of 20 lifestyle experiments to get you started:
- Remove sugar from diet
- Deactivate social media accounts
- Do one simple exercise every day
- Create something every day
- Cook everything you eat from scratch
- Project 333 wardrobe experiment
- Go plastic free or zero waste
- Shopping ban
- No TV (at all or during specific times)
- Track your mood and energy levels
- Track every penny you spend
- Stop drinking coffee
- Go car-free or from 2 to 1 car
- Whole food diet
- Make a daily vlog on YouTube
- Morning pages every day
- Take one good picture every day
- Limit phone use to 1 hour per day
- Go vegetarian or vegan
- Play minsgame
Lifestyle Experiment Ideas
Get instant access to a crowdsourced list of 100+ lifestyle experiment ideas.
Lifestyle Experiment Ideas
Get instant access to a crowdsourced list of 100+ lifestyle experiment ideas.
Tips To Stick With It
The most important factor of any lifestyle experiment is that you stay consistent with it for however long you planned, unless you experience serious negative results. Without finishing, you can’t see the results and make an informed decision about how it affected you.
Depending on your experiment, the first few days are probably going to suck. Especially if it’s a change you’re not used to, or something completely different from you’ve done for years. Your brain is going to “twitch” and try to get you to stop doing whatever you’re trying, even if it’s actually better for you. Unless you’re experiencing substantial discomfort, keep pushing through and know that once you get past a week, it is going to get so much easier to continue for your designated time.
1 / Keep it simple
Remember, this may be the first of dozens of lifestyle experiments over the next few years of your life. This is a marathon and you don’t have to run the whole thing right now, so take it slow and keep it simple. You can ramp it up as you go.
2 / Partner up
Accountability is an important aspect of any lifestyle change; do what you can to find someone who’s willing to try the experiment with you. It helps to have someone to check in with and even better if you’re both invested in each other’s mutual success.
3 / Track it publicly
You don’t have to start a blog, but sharing your experience through a blog, social media, or with friends and family is a great way stick with it. Another great way to do this is hanging a piece of paper somewhere visible to track your progress.
Make sure you don’t just talk about it instead of doing it. I find it best to keep these sorts of experiments to yourself (unless you partner up) for the first week or two while you get your bearings. It’s easy to take a false first step by talking about doing something instead of actually doing it.
Finally, if you don’t make it all the way through, don’t beat yourself up! It’s just an experiment and you can always try again or try something completely different. If you want to try the same thing again, cut the difficulty in half and take it from the top!
Lifestyle Experiments I’ve Tried
1 / The Minimalist Game
This is where our decluttering journey began and continues to be one of the most effective decluttering methods Amy and I have tried. Over a few months we got rid of thousands of things from our home and created physical space that we didn’t even know we had.
This was a fundamental change that opened up many other opportunities for us along the way; it’s definitely worth taking a shot at it.
2 / Low Carbs & No Sugar
I’ve done this one for as little as 30 days and as long as four months and every time I do it the results are truly incredible. I did this as recently as December ’17 and lost about 9-10 pounds while buried in snow in Minneapolis and not working out at all.
Since doing these no sugar experiments I’ve substantially tapered the amount of sugar and carbs I eat on a regular basis whether or not I’m doing a full ban or not. In my experience, fat loss and muscle building is about 85% diet and 15% exercise—that might not be the case for everyone, but I’ve found that when I don’t eat sugar, I:
- Immediately start dropping body fat
- Have more consistent energy
- Feel better overall
- Have lower triglycerides & bad cholesterol
- Don’t feel as hungry all the time
To be clear, I’m not a nutritionist and I’m not able to make diet or exercise recommendations; this has just been my experience. Sugar sucks.
3 / No Coffee
I still drink coffee, because I love it, but I’ve experimented with not drinking it and after several weeks of experimentation found that I prefer drinking it to not. Many people I’ve spoken with have said that it causes them anxiety or other issues, but at least right now, I haven’t noticed much along the negative side.
I do typically only drink a cup of it or so per day and then stop drinking it for a few days to reset my body’s tolerance so I don’t need to increase my intake over time. This might be something for you to experiment with as well.
4 / Social Media Detox
In short, after deleting social media from my phone and doing a digital detox, almost everything got better. After a few days I didn’t miss it at all—but part of the nature of running a blog is also being on social media—so I still use it and continually seek a balanced approach to it.
I find myself wanting to completely detox for a period of time every 90 days or so—30 days off every 90 days on or something like that. If you’ve never done it, this is absolutely something to try.
5 / Daily Writing
For the last year and a half or so, I’ve been doing a 5x per week writing challenge with a friend of mine. It’s not always perfect, but it’s been a productive challenge that gets me writing more than I would otherwise.
On the days that I have something to say, I’m consistently showing up for them to come out. On the days I don’t, I probably write a lot of garbage that will never see the light of day. Either way, it’s perfectly fine.
Get Started!
If you haven’t already, download the list of 100+ lifestyle experiments and highlight a few you might be interested in!
Lifestyle Experiment Ideas
Get instant access to a crowdsourced list of 100+ lifestyle experiment ideas.
Lifestyle Experiment Ideas
Get instant access to a crowdsourced list of 100+ lifestyle experiment ideas.
At this point, you have everything you need to get started with a lifestyle experiment of your own! If you have tips to share, feel free to do so in the comment section of this blog post—I’d love to see what has worked for you and what hasn’t.
Last but not least, don’t wait until a particular date, month, day of the week, or any other trivial date to start your experiment. While it might make sense to start on a Monday, it’s best to just do it now. Don’t wait for a new month to experiment with in creating your new life.
Being stuck is totally frustrating, but you can get unstuck by deploying some simple lifestyle experiments over the next few months. It’s a great way to shake things up and really make some substantial changes in your life over time.
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