Reflecting on the experiment we did between May and June, it’s been interesting to see the insights that have developed from the process. Here’s my take and what I’ve found. First of all, I was very happy with the level of momentum that I was able to sustain for 30 days continuously. I was equally happy with the fact that I got myself writing every day without exception. That played a pivotal role in proving to my subconscious mind that I was capable of getting in action and impersonating my ideal self in at least one aspect.
The downside: the process ate up a lot of time and energy and I came to conclude that it would be difficult to sustain the same level of effort over the long haul. Unsustainability is not inherently a bad thing. Not all processes are made to run in perpetuity. The real question is, what does the next stage of the cycle look like? What does sustainability look like for the 30-day experiment, given what we’ve discovered in this first round? I believe that the real power of the process was in the interpersonal accountability structure that Sheila and I created. We could have done the same thing with virtually any structure and likely our execution discipline would have been equally successful for the most part.
It seems like Sheila and I uncovered different aspects of the challenges we were each examining. Sheila produced a mood grid, but I didn’t. I didn’t do any drawing or coloring. I just built out a spreadsheet and focused my efforts on being thorough in the development of the factual material. I leaned heavily on ChatGPT to deepen my insights. I ran each exercise through a first personal pass, then asked the AI to prompt me with probing questions. I now have a somewhat loosely put together database of my insights from the 30-day process. I don’t have any pictures or visual images to convey the insights I got. I’m curious to see how a third person would apply the process.
The next inquiry that I’m in is how I could possibly jump start a community experiment. What would happen if we got a group of people trying out the 30-Day Experiment Life Quest Playbook framework for 30 days? We’ve discussed several different options here, and we are clear about one thing. At the moment, I am still percolating on possibilities and have not taken any active steps to recruit members of a group. I also don’t have any timeline. Rather than rushing to launch the group version prematurely, we opted to refine the format and run another internal sprint. We devised a newer, simpler 30-day experiment to begin immediately.
Sheila and I decided to check in by text every morning on our writing projects. If you read any of my blog posts about my initial run through the 30-day experiment back in May you may recall that I decided that my core intention behind the experiment was to get myself motivated to write more often. I’m happy to say that we’ve come back full circle to the same goal, and I am continuing to see progress in this area. At the time of this writing, the second 30-day experiment is only 3 days in, and so far I have produced a blog post for my business blog that had been collecting cobwebs up to this point. The same check-in structure got me to sit up and finish this blog post even though I really didn’t feel like it.
We are essentially leveraging the observer effect as a motivational boost. Now what I wonder about is, does the observer effect begin to diminish at some point? At some point, do we forget that people are observing us and revert back to our default behavior? Are regular pattern interrupters required to keep things from getting stagnant? I remain curious about these and many other questions as I continue to experiment on my own brain. I’ll let you know how it all pans out after day 30 is complete…