Obsessive Life Experiments; Changing Behavior

On Friday I completed 6 full months of not drinking alcohol. It was my attempt to recalibrate things, force myself to learn other ways to relax, and see what I would fill my time with while observing changes in myself.

I was less social. Bars were my main places to hang out before the experiment and instead of finding new places to hang out I mostly stayed home and skyped with my girlfriend. Going out less lead to more productivity while working on three full time businesses (Hype Machine, SCHED* and Phobooth).

I never danced at shows/clubs unless I was really drunk, so I finally learned how to dance sober. It was just as enjoyable and less dizzy-ing.

I got in the best shape I’ve been in since early college (7+ years ago). Both by eliminating empty calories from my diet and instead of going out drinking at night I would run instead. I ran both the farthest I’ve ever run in my life at one time and the fastest mile of my life during this period.

I didn’t really save money. Unsurprisingly I found other ways to spend or reward myself for not drinking like $160 running shoes that really do make it feel like you’re running on a cloud.

I didn’t really find an easy and effective equivalent way to relax. I tried meditation and yoga but I never stuck to either consistently while traveling. I ended up watching more hulu/netflix than I’ve ever watched in my life, which was a disappointment.

This isn’t the first time I jumped right into something…

I went from eating everything to full vegan for 6 months in 2009. Throwing myself in that new behavior taught me lessons in eating right, trying new things, learning to love to cook, and how behavior can be embraced as identity.

I took a photo every single day in 2004 with a low end digital camera that forced me to learn everything I know about framing and hunting out interesting things. I repeated the project in 2006 with a digital SLR and learned everything I know about aperture, focus, iso, shutter speed and lighting.

In college I skipped all my classes and didn’t leave my room for a week and taught myself how to build a web site.

My next project will be no tv, movies or online videos for 6 months starting tomorrow. I want to stop wasting time on stuff I could live without, breaking out of the habit of watching stuff to fall asleep and spend more time outside. People always take my obsessive life experiments as me saying something is bad (not drinking really weirds people out). I love movies as much as the next person and will return to them after it’s done. I just want to alter my relationship with them and this is the most effective way I’ve found to do that with myself.

One of my new years goals is to give a non-techy/music talk (what I usually speak about at conferences). The idea is growing around the idea that short-term obsessive life experiments are the best way to permanently alter your relationship with that thing. I’ve been staring at this presentation on the Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Chanage by some brilliant folks at Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab and think they will be useful too.

So I’ve tried these experiments on food, alcohol and soon television. What do you want to change your relationship with?

  1. oats answered: Congrats!!! An inspiration. I am constantly trying to hack my own habits.
  2. davort reblogged this from gtmcknight
  3. mvpy answered: not buying anything (except food and, say, toilet paper) for a year (started oct. 10 2010), no facebook for ∞ (started jan. 1 2010))
  4. cocowolf reblogged this from ronenreblogs
  5. somethingbysomeone reblogged this from ronenreblogs
  6. erina answered: i’m working on giving up coffee. i’ve gone 2 work weeks without it, but have had it on weekends. it’s more enjoyable in moderation.
  7. redkisses-foryou answered: Consumerism in general. How o
  8. breefield answered: The internet
  9. ronenreblogs reblogged this from gtmcknight
  10. gtmcknight posted this