The Value of 365-Day Experiments
Do it for a year
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Online personal development guru Steve Pavlina is famous for having conducted a variety of 30-day experiments, be it learning the guitar, intermittent fasting, or sustaining a raw diet. To this day, he still engages in these types of experiments and blogs about them.
I discovered Pavlina’s work in 2007, and soon began the process of starting my own 30-day experiments — things like learning the mandolin or Joomla — and blogging about the experience.
Earlier that same year, though, I had already started what I called Project 365, and my aim was to write a song, every single day, for a full year.
Although I hadn’t given much thought to it until recently, since then, I’ve engaged in several 365-day experiments, each of which have brought untold blessings into my life.
These challenges are incredibly helpful in developing discipline and making massive progress in a chosen area.
But I’ll talk more about the benefits as we go. I’d like to start by sharing with you an overview of the experiments I’ve completed, and the results derived from each.
365-Day Experiments I’ve Completed
Here are the 365-day experiments I’ve completed so far:
- 2007: Wrote 365 songs in a year (and succeeded)
- 2008: Practiced guitar for three hours per day (and failed)
- 2009: Practiced guitar for three hours per day (and succeeded)
- 2015: Read 52 books in a year (and succeeded)
- 2016: Read 52 books in a year (and succeeded a second time)
- 2020–2021: Published daily for a full year (in progress)
Now for some of the results these experiments produced:
- In 2007, I ended up writing two fan favorite originals: “Wonderfully Dysfunctional” and “Too Late.”
- In 2008, after a brief stint as a solo artist, I joined a band again, and it went onto become one of the most successful acts I’ve been a part of to date.
- In 2015, I wrote a book review for Dr. Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, and to this day, it’s my highest…
