What are lifestyle experiments? They are like 30 day challenges you give to yourself to help give you some insight on something or to help form a new habit. They take you out of your comfort zone and usually help break some bad habits. Lifestyle experiments should be fun and challenging and should be in alignment with your life goals. Here are a few that I am starting or have recently started. If you are new to this I would recommend starting out with only 1 challenge at a time.
Lifestyle experiment #1 – No disposable garbage such a coffee cups, take out containers, etc. This one will be very tough for me, but I realized how much disposable garbage I’ve been using because its convenient to do so. At lunch I grab things on the go when I’m busy at work and this will have to stop. I especially like the vegetarian soups across the street from my work, but they don’t come in bowls, only takeout styrofoam containers. I won’t be able to get any Tim Horton’s or Starbucks unless I bring my own container, either. Plus there are numerous other places I go to grab food on the go around my office that I won’t be able to any longer. This will be a challenge, and I don’t know if I’ll succeed. But I’ll try and by the end of it I’ll be confident that I’ll have reduced my consumption of these wasteful products significantly.
Reason for doing lifestyle experiment #1 – to further reduce my ecological footprint on this planet, one of my lifelong goals.
Lifestyle experiment #2 – Get rid of cellphone. I don’t really need it. There aren’t that many people that call me anymore. In all my years of owning a cellphone, I have only ever received 1 emergency phone call. I’ve been really thinking about this one and I think I’ve fallen in the trap of owning a cell phone for the sake of owning one, when in fact I’m not really getting what I pay out of it. Most people with their fancy phones don’t actually need a fancy phone, and they find excuses to buy one rather than legitimately needing one (like for work). Its a very terrible mindset in my opinion. Its like paying for a gym membership and not going to the gym. I’ve got email, I’ve got Skype, I’ve got IM, so if anybody wants to get in touch with me they can do so through those mediums. I won’t bring my cellphone to work and I’ll keep it on silent when I’m at home to eliminate distractions. This experiment shouldn’t be too difficult, I literally get more wrong numbers and telemarketers calling me then people who actually are looking to speak to me. If after 30 days the cellphone experiment is a success I’ll likely reduce to pay as you go and only turn it on when I need to make a phone call and I’m not near my computer (like if I’m out and meeting a friend).
Reason for doing lifestyle experiment #2 – Cost cutting. Part of my trimming the fat and of living a simpler life.
Lifestyle experiment #3 – Stronger eye contact with strangers. I tend to not look at strangers. I think that’s a shame because strangers are only strangers because you haven’t met them yet! And you don’t stand a chance of meeting them if you never look at them. I started this habit of not looking at people living in Toronto when I noticed that if you look at a homeless person in the eyes they’ll tend to always ask you for money. However, if you don’t you have a better chance of not being asked or pretending to ignore them. Torontonians do this a lot and I picked it up. Then for some reason it generalized and I avoided everybody’s eye contact. I plan on not avoiding on contact for 30 days, including the homeless without staring at people creepily. This shouldn’t be too bad, because I have tried this before and noticed that people don’t recognize you because they aren’t looking or will smile at you or the occasional guy who tries to outstare you.
Reason for doing lifestyle experiment #3 – Purely for fun. Who knows, might make a friend or two!
If I cheat or fail, I’ll post the updates on Twitter. http://twitter.com/landland
Get started on some of your lifestyle experiments today!