In the month of January, the Freelance Editors Club read Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. And full disclosure: I haven’t finished the book yet. I know, I know. BUT. This book has totally snuck up on me and is causing me to view how I do certain things in a whole new way.
The author makes an argument that we should not be afraid with experimenting with things and evaluating how those trials go—like a science experiment—rather than setting a firm goal where we either succeed or fail.
So, for example, instead of the goal being I will be fluent in Spanish by the end of this year, allow yourself to try an experiment for a certain period of time.
That may look like I am going to practice Spanish three times a week for the month of March. At the end of March, you will evaluate your experiment and see what worked and what didn’t and go from there.
I am loving this framework because it can apply to so much in my life. And I realized I’ve kind of already done this with social media. So many of us are dealing with complicated feelings about our current relationship to social media. And I realized I could see my usage of social media as an experiment. I can experiment marketing my services a certain number of times a week for a certain amount of time. I can experiment with Bricking my phone. I can experiment taking a month-long break.
I don’t know what these experiments will lead to, but I am really looking forward to seeing the results. What’s a tiny experiment you might want to try this month, or even this year? Reply back and let me know—I’d love to hear about it!
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