It begins

Back in November 07 I decided to run a 30 day vegetarianism experiment. Before then, being a devotee of all things burger and bacon, I hadn’t really given vegetarianism too much thought. But at the time I was feeling worn out and I wanted to see if changing my diet would improve my energy levels. Fortunately at the time my partner was going overseas on business, so I wouldn’t have to inflict the new regime on her!

Buying the carrots

Planning and setting up the experiment was quite easy. The success measures were quite straightforward:

1. Yes/No: Did I eat any meat products today?
2. Scale 1 – 10: How difficult was it for me today to stay on track with this experiment?
3. Scale 1 – 10: What was my energy level today?

I printed out a table with these measures across the top and next 30 days down the left side. I stuck it in a very prominent position on a cupboard door in the kitchen so that it would be 3 inches from my face every time I was preparing food.

The only other preparation activity I needed to complete was to stock up on some fruit and vegetables. There is a great vegetable market near my home so I went along and picked out a heap of interesting fruit and veg. Some I had eaten before and some that I had never tried.

There was no meat in the fridge at the time, but there were other products that contained meat such as soup in the cupboards. Since I was feeling fairly confident I decided to leave them where they were.

Fancy a Macca’s?

Looking back, I am surprised how easy it was to stay on track during the experiment. I can honestly say I didn’t miss eating meat at all. I didn’t even crave my usual weekly fast food fix! I put this down to the power of the 30 day experiment. Since the commitment was only for a short time I felt very relaxed about it and treated it as an interesting and fun exercise.

With my partner away it was down to me to prepare meals when I ate at home. This was a challenge because I would rate my cooking skills as low to non-existent. I probably ate dinner at home 20 of the 30 days and rotated about 5 dishes that are within my capability to prepare. I do remember on a couple of occasions I grew quite bored of this limited menu, but, to be honest, I don’t think there would have been much improvement if I was eating meat!

My biggest challenge was eating out. Not so much because I craved meat dishes on the menu, more that there was often very few vegetarian choices. I suspect this is a lament of many vegetarians who want to dine out with meat-eating friends.

Keep it, tweak it, or dump it?

During the 30 day experiment I did feel a small improvement in my energy levels and general wellness. But you could easily dismiss this as a placebo effect. One thing I am sure about is that I no longer experienced the lethargic feeling of fullness I used to get after eating a heavy meat-based meal.

I also started to feel a minor repulsion of meat. I can’t explain why this is but now when I think of meat it gives me the sickly feeling you get when you think of a particularly rich or pungent food.

At the end of the 30 days I reflected on my experiences and found that this was a change that worked for me. So I decided to keep it.

And I haven’t eaten meat since.

Actually, that is not completely true. I have eaten meat twice since then. More for convenience than out of a strong desire for it.

But for me that is the best bit. I don’t have an overwhelming conviction that I should never eat meat again. But I do know that a vegetarian diet makes me feel healthier. And it works well for me from an ethical perspective.

Now, what’s for dinner?

All the best,

Nathan Curtis

From my experience I think these suggestions are about the right size for a 30 day trial. You may find that you would like to take things slower or faster. If so, broaden or narrow the focus of the experiment to meet your own objectives and motivation.

I have categorised the list by common personal development topics.

Health and Wellbeing

• Stop eating meat.
• Get up 20 minutes earlier every day and take a brisk walk around the block.
• Try a new food or cooking style every day for the duration of the experiment.
• Practice yoga or meditation for 30 minutes a day.
• Stop drinking alcohol.
• Cook at home every night (cut out takeaways or eating out).
• Consciously avoid thinking negatively.
• Exercise every day for 30 minutes.
• Stop eating a particular “black-list” food item. (Black-list food is any food you indulge in excessively that is not healthy or nutritious. Examples are chips, chocolate and high sugar drinks.)
• Take up a new sport and play 2-3 times per week.

Lifestyle Design

• Outsource a low value-add chore.
• Stop watching television. Read or listen to music instead.
• Develop a new contact or relationship every day.
• Spend one hour every day learning a new language.
• Eat out every night at a restaurant you have never tried before.
• Become actively involved in an online or offline community.
• Smile and greet people with warmth even if it is not reciprocated.
• Start a blog and write 3-5 times per week.
• Leave work on time and do not work on the weekend.

Productivity

• Process email in a batch once per day.
• Practice GTD techniques.
• Practice Tim Ferriss’s Low Information Diet.
• Use the telephone instead of writing email.
• Set yourself two objectives for your day first thing in the morning.
• Stop reading blogs, news sites or forums.

Hope this list gives you a few ideas for your own 30 day experiments. The key is to take action. Pick something, take an hour to set up the experiment and get started.

All the best,

Nathan Curtis

In a previous post I explained in detail how to set up a 30 day personal improvement experiment. In this follow-up post I will use an example to show what a typical experiment might look like and how easy it is to set one up.

Choose your poison

All change starts with identifying an opportunity for improvement. Since most of us are well aware of our own weaknesses and bad habits it should be relatively easy to get some general ideas down on paper.

Common examples include:

• Poor eating habits
• Lack of exercise
• Email overload
• Negative thinking
• Social phobias

For the example in this post I will use a fictitious character called Jane. Jane has some poor eating habits she wishes to replace. Her ultimate goal is to improve her general wellness and increase her energy levels. To help achieve that goal Jane would like to experiment with eating more nutritious, healthy foods.

Small Steps lead to big changes

Since effective, long lasting change is best made in small steps over time it is important to pick one aspect of the larger goal to focus the 30 day experiment on. Too big a change can often be detrimental to sustainable success.

Jane has identified that she tends to snack on high fat, high salt processed foods when she is at home alone during the day. In her first experiment she wants to try replacing this “black-list” food with healthier alternatives or preferably avoiding unnecessary snacking altogether.

I can be happy, when?

The next step in the process is to define the success measures for the experiment. In general, success measures can be objective or subjective. When designing your experiments I suggest you bias towards objective measures but you should also try to measure how you feel as you progress through the experiment.

Jane defines the success measures for her de-snacking experiment as follows:

1. Number of times today I ate black-listed foods.
2. Number of times today I considered eating black-listed foods but instead chose a healthier alternative or ate nothing.
3. Scale 1 – 10: How difficult was it for me today to stay on track with this experiment?
4. Scale 1 – 10: What was my energy level today?
5. Yes/No: Did I meet the requirements of my experiment today?

Trigger happy

Once the measures of the experiment have been defined, the next step is to identify the triggers that will help you to stay on track. Typically triggers will be visual cues placed in locations where you will make decisions about the action or activity you wish to modify. They might also be alerts or reminders on the computer, phone or other electronic device.

Jane sets up the following triggers:

1. She finds a large piece of paper and draws on it a grid with the 5 measures across the top and the next 30 days listed down the left side. She sticks the piece of paper on the door of the kitchen cupboard used to store the majority of the black-listed food. (Since other family members are not taking part in the experiment Jane does not have the option to simply throw away black-listed food.)
2. She writes on the back of a business card her experiment definition and her ultimate goal. She puts this card in her wallet where she will see it every time she makes a payment.

Note that in Jane’s case trigger #1 also serves as her results capturing document that she will complete on a daily basis through the experiment.

Get going

The preparation work described above should take less than 1 hour to complete. And once done you will be ready to start the experiment.

It is important to capture your results on a daily basis while your actions and experiences are fresh in your mind.

Once the 30 day “Do” phase is over then you can then sit down, review the results you have captured and your general feeling about the change you have made. Then it is time for you to make a decision whether to keep it, tweak it, or drop it and try something else.

In the case of our example Jane had good success with avoiding black-listed food and, althought it was tough in the first week, she found that as the experiment progressed she craved the food less and less. At the end of the 30 days she decides to keep the new behaviour and builds off it by designing a new 30 day experiment to reduce her consumption of high sugar soda drinks.

In the next post I will provide a list of possible experiments to help you get your mind into gear for your next experiment.

All the best

Nathan Curtis

Lightweight and sustainable

My aim with the Lifestyle Design Lab and my 30 day experiments is to make continuous small improvements in my life by trying new things and keeping what works.

Since I am not an ultra-motivated or energetic person I need to make sure that the process is as lightweight as possible. Otherwise I will not be able to sustain it.

Oh, and the experience has to be fun too!

The process

The process I use for my 30 day experiments is loosely based on the Deming Cycle of plan, do, check and act. Let’s take a look at each phase.

Plan

There are four steps in the Plan phase:

1. I shortlist and select an area of my life I would like to improve.
2. I drill down into the area and identify one specific behaviour or activity I would like to adopt, modify or cease.
3. I define criteria and measures (metrics) for success in the improvement.
4. I define one or more triggers that will remind me to stay on track and also to remind me to record my results and observations as the experiment progresses.

Do

In the Do phase I simply implement the behaviour or activity and record my results and observations. I try to consciously and actively stay on track throughout the 30 days. Carefully planned triggers can help with this.

Check

Once the 30 days is up I reflect on my experiences as follows:

1. I objectively review my results and observations and compare them against my defined success criteria.
2. I subjectively reflect on the experience. Did the change “work for me?” Did it feel like an improvement? Was it easy or hard? Did I sustain the change for the entire 30 days or were there times when it slipped?

Act

Once I have reflected on the outcomes of the experiment it is time to make a decision on what to do next. There are 3 broad options:

1. Keep it. Sustain the change in my life. Continue to use the same trigger points as long as necessary until the change becomes a strong habit.
2. Drop it. Do not pursue the change any further.
3. Tweak it. Design a new 30 day experiment that builds off this experience.

There you have it. It is amazingly simple and amazingly powerful.

In the next post I will go through a specific example to show you what an experiment might look like. I will also talk more about the types of improvements that work well in 30 day experiments, and how to set up the all-important triggers.

All the best,

Nathan Curtis

And when was the last time you actually made the change and stuck by it?

Change is hard

Making significant changes in your life is hard. The barriers are high. The emotional commitment you need to make is scary. Most of the time you never actually believe deep down inside that you can or will make the change.

This can sometimes lead to frustration and discontent. You want an aspect of your life to improve but you can’t seem to muster the emotional commitment to make it happen.

Fortunately there is a solution. And surprisingly it is borrowed from the world of marketing. You see, every day marketers are faced with the very same problem.

The 30 Day Trial

To overcome the barrier of making an expensive or otherwise significant purchase marketers typically offer a 30 day trial. If you’re not completely satisfied with the results from your purchase you can get a refund, no questions asked.

The psychological barrier to making the purchase is lowered. After all, if you don’t like it or you feel ripped off you can simply get your money back and forget it ever happened. Your risk is reduced.

So why not apply the same principle in your own life? Pick something you want to change or improve and trial it for 30 days. Treat it as an experiment. Monitor the results you get.

And if you’re not completely satisfied after the 30 day trial period then simply return to your old ways, or try something else.

Just keep the stuff that works for you.

Go vegetarian tomorrow

I cannot tell you how much easier it is to commit to experimenting with something for 30 days than it is to commit to making a permanent change.

You can read a specific example of how this concept has worked for me in my vegetarianism experiment. When I started the experiment I had no intention of continuing a vegetarian diet past the 30 day period. But it has worked so well for me that I am still not eating meat, which at the time of writing is two months after my initial experiment finished.

But wait, there’s more…

A terrific side effect of this approach is that 30 days is sufficient time for you to develop a new habit. So, while you are experimenting to find out whether something works for you, you are also developing a habit that will help you to make the change permanent should you decide to stick with it.

I have found in most cases that it has been very easy for me to continue with a change past the 30 day trial period, especially if the change has clearly benefited me.

Create a monster

I’ll go into detail in future posts about how to set up and run a 30 day experiment but for now I will give a quick overview of the process:

1. Take an area of your life you wish to improve.
2. Design a 30 day experiment that tackles one specific aspect of the improvement. A first small step towards your goal.
3. Run the experiment and monitor your results.
4. At the end of the experiment review your results and how you felt about the experience.
5. Decide what to do next. Options are keep it, tweak it, or dump it and try something else.

All the best,

Nathan Curtis