Ask The Readers: What Life Experiments Will You Have Me Do?
I’ve been speaking through e-mail with my friend Steve Pavlina. He stresses that since my site is getting a good amount of traffic now, it’s becoming increasingly important for me to do something riskee. That is, to take a risk and do something different.
Something about that rings painfully true. If I’m going to keep doing what I have been doing, I’m going to be getting the same results that I’ve always gotten. In order for me to break into a new level I’ll have to do something that’s different from what I’ve been doing. Seems very logical to me.
Steve suggested to take on a 30 day experiment. I told him he took all the good ones already (kidding, of course). He pointed me to the most important idea generating source that I have at my disposal, at least when it comes to creating content for this blog — you, my reader.
After all, this site is here for you, more so than it is for me, and what you want to see is always taken into account. With that said, I’d like to hear what you have to say.
Get into the comments, and and let me have it. Get as creative and wacky as you want, and let your imagination run wild. Give me 30 day experiments that will improve my life, might improve your life, or something that you think is utterly impossible but totally beneficial.
If you’ve been reading, but having been responding to this point, this is the perfect time to jump into the conversation. What do you think I’m going to do, fire you as my reader if you say the wrong thing? You’re safe with me. 
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Posted by Alex Shalman in Ask The Readers | August 12, 2008 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 16 comments
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Everyday for 30 days write a guestpost for random beginner’s blog.
I think you should fulfill a childhood dream.
Approach X amount of people per day, give them a compliment and then tell them to have an awesome day
Held-breath underwater swimming!
Risky? You bet. Beneficial? Possibly profoundly. Go and test it
http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran3.htm
Every day for 30 days, pick a fight with a total stranger, and lose.
Ok let’s get real people and give Alex a suggestion that will not only challenge him, but challenge us as well.
I am not sure if you drink (beer, wine, whatever) or smoke, but I would give up all drinking and smoking, (or any other drugs for that matter). I would also ask that you go sex free. In addition, you should do intensive physical training (with a personal trainer or group classes) for two hours every morning before anything else. The reason I say with a trainer is because we all know that we have a greater chance of working harder with someone else pushing us.
If you do not already drink or smoke-great! Then I would give up all sugar for the month.
Alcohol and drug free
Sex free
Two-hour workout with trainer every morning
Sugar free
I have lived that lifestyle for many months out of my life, and when I stick to the regimen, I find that my life is filled with positive energy.
Document this process; take pictures, and videos of your meals and your daily workouts. Use your “Bragging Blog” post and show us how its done with this 30 day exercise.
@Kacper — I don’t think writing a guest post for a beginners blog would benefit me. I could put it on a bigger blog, and get my message across to more people, or get a freelance gig and write an paid article, which would be beneficial to both parties.
@Vikki Majors — I’ll think about how that can be incorporated into a 30 day trial.
@Glen Allsop — I think your suggestion would help me if I was shy, but I’m not, so I think I can use my time to challenge myself in a much larger way. I’m currently at a 2 week learning retreat and have no problem making friends with teachers and students alike.
@Redek Pilich — I skimmed that article and it looks REALLY interesting, but I don’t have time to go through it today, thanks for pointing me to it. You might be onto something.
@Hunter Nuttall — Why??
@Lewis — If I study abroad, I’ll definitely be sex-free, and for sure drug free and smoke free. I can swing the sugar free if no one puts anything into the food, because I’ll be eating publicly for nearly all my meals.
The two-hour workout with a trainer would be hard for me. I can’t afford a PT for 2 hours each day, I know they get expensive. No normal gym offers a workout class that is that long, it’s not practical. I would be able to do a variation of this like 1 hour of cardio run/bike/elliptical each morning.
I would like to hear more about documentation. It’s reasonable for me to take pictures of each meals, but I wouldn’t be able to give calorie counts because I would be eating what the school serves. I can easily describe the exercise as well. What other things would be interesting, informative, and inspirational to document?
The “pick a fight and lose” thing is from Fight Club. It’s one of the homework assignments they’re given, and it proves to be difficult because people are very reluctant to fight even when provoked. For example, one guy keeps using a hose to soak bystanders, but they stand there in disbelief and then run away instead of fighting.
Of course I wouldn’t seriously suggest doing that, but I think psychological experiments are always interesting and can tell us a lot. It would also stretch your comfort zone, though perhaps not in the most constructive way.
It seems to me that since you want both your readers and yourself to benefit from the experience, that doing 30-day trials on techniques/ideas put forth by other personal development writers etc. might be a nice idea.
So you could possibly do trials on material covered in health books/time management books.. maybe even some of steve pavlina’s advice? Or of other bloggers..
That would give you the growth of trying something new.. and give readers more insight into how certain techniques might benefit them.
Here are a couple ideas:
- Try an experiment of going to bed early and getting up ultra early. Then flip it around and write about the pros and cons of each way.
- Try to only work for 2 hours each day and keep record of how that works and what you learn from it.
- Go without television for 30 days
- Go without the internet for 30 days (probably not practical–maybe try a week)
Try to go for 30 days without any negativity- i.e being happy no matter what the circumstances are- keep track of things that pissed you off or things that you wanted to complain about or didn’t go right and what your instinct was to do- i.e argue, complain, be sad, get angry, lie etc.. and what you did instead.. how you handled the situation, what you said/did/tried to feel instead… for ex.. you fail an exam and the first thing u wanted to do was call ur gf and complain, but instead u worked it off at the gym (only an example and not real life).. and keep track of the results of the new behavior/new ways of dealing with stuff.
I am about to begin a similar event Alex. I picked up a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” and will be doing the 40 day program with my wife. I’ll have to do a daily video or something along with it.
What ever you decide to do, I am sure it will serve your readers well.
My suggestion would be to interview a successful person each day and either post the results of each interview, or write up a synthesis of what you learned at the end of the experiment. It’s up to you to define what success means to you, but since you’re living on the east coast it should be easy to meet movers and shakers in the worlds of business and media.
My suggestion is to not use verbal communication for one week. I had a friend in college that did this as an experiment in social communication and it was very interesting to watch him go through the process. Basically, you have to learn to get your point across without words – using body language, facial expression and action. Very interesting stuff. I would also avoid just walking around with a notepad. Try to use other methods before writing. This is also a great form of meditation as it forces you to really listen to your inner voice while quieting your outer voice.
If you do this, be sure to report back to us each day with frustrations and successes.
I really admire your idea here and hope that something works well for a 30 day trial.
Here’s something I’d be interested in seeing. I don’t know how social you are, but if I were going to do a 30-day trial, here is example of what I’d be doing in an attempt to be more social:
- Make a new friend every day for 30 days, not using the Internet. You could, say, meet someone at an event you found out about through meetup.com, or something, but you can’t just poke someone’s profile and then see that you both love the movie “Fight Club” and randomly decide to meet up. You have to meet them “in real life”, so to speak.
- In a similar sort of thing — perhaps it would be more realistic to just say “attend a social event” every day for 30 days. You’re not going out to dinner with your friends, but more likely attending a small party or something like that. Obviously, that’d be easier here in New York City than in a lot of the rest of the country, but in any case, you may be stretching your limits.
A lot of people who are into personal development only meet other people into this stuff, and while it gives you something to talk about, that’s really kind of a fallback, in my opinion. If you can meet total strangers, that’s awesome.
Or hey, why not just do the daily missions in “The Rules of the Game”:
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Game-Neil-Strauss/dp/0061540455/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219198501&sr=8-1
I’d be interested in seeing someone go through that, since I always end up quitting after a few days in, since the rest of life becomes too much more important :p In fact, if you do that, I may go for it simultaneously as well. As a preview, one of the first few missions is “Make small talk with 5 strangers today”, which is not as easy you might expect (for some, as myself).
Hope these turn out to be directly or indirectly helpful, or at least interesting!
Take care
–Tom M
Spend 30 days without improving your life in any way. No goals, no plans, no benefits.