Why You Should Treat Life Like An Experiment

You probably heard of the saying to treat failure as feedback.

You probably also heard to fail like a scientist.

I love both of these ideas.

Better yet why not take them one step further to create an even more ambitious mindset:

Treat life as an experiment!

If you think about it, life is nothing more than an experiment.

Every goal. Every project. Every relationship.

Every uncomfortable situation you seem to find yourself in.

Every experience period.

They are all nothing more than experiments for you to explore what you like and what you don’t.

To see what works and what doesn’t.

To learn what you’re capable of and where you need to grow.

Put more simply, they are all vehicles for you to experience something new and then notice how it feels.

Because if you peel away all its layers, life ultimately comes down to experiences.

This mindset of viewing life as an experiment is about remembering that nuance.

A few reasons why you should treat life as an experiment

1. Like failure as feedback, treating life as an experiment desensitizes you to failure and the inevitable ups and downs of life. Instead of reeling after every setback or struggle, like a real scientific experiment you’ll simply be able to observe your results, decide to adjust as necessary, and jump back in at another time or move on because you realized perhaps this experience wasn’t for you.
2. It will keep your ego off the chopping block no matter what you are taking on. When a scientist runs an experiment and it initially doesn’t go well, they don’t sulk in the corner and give up. Nor do they bang their chest and declare victory when they get positive results. When you view life as an experiment, you view every experience as feedback whether pleasant or unpleasant. You understand that every endeavor is a means for you to learn and experience something and not to stroke your ego.
3. It’s the ultimate growth mindset. We live in a world that promotes somewhat the opposite: a success mindset. However, success can be elusive and for some goals and endeavors, it may take a long time to reach. Real success will largely depend on how you handle the many tiny failed experiments along the way. Treating life as an experiment prioritizes attaining insight and making progress over getting at a final result.
4. It allows you to approach life with a sense of playful sincerity and curiosity. Life is short and precious, why take it so seriously? When you approach everything with a genuine willingness to experience something new and an eagerness to explore and learn while at the same time having a playful demeanor, things no longer seem like an uphill climb like they normally do. You accept that throughout the course of your life all types of craziness will occur. People will get mad at you. You will make mistakes. Fall down and get back up. Lose money. Clash with others. Maybe embarrass yourself occasionally. But it’s all fun and games because you approach life with playful sincerity.
5. You become willing to step out of your comfort zone and try your hand at everything that interests you. Sometimes we refrain from taking action on trying something new or make a change in our life because the uncertainty is scary. Whether it’s making a career switch, starting a business, learning a new skill, moving to a new city, or even meeting new people. Seeing life as an experiment frees you from this uncertainty and the need to have all the answers figured out before you jump in. It opens you up to possibilities and gives you permission to explore. The world really is your oyster with an infinite amount of experiments to be conducted. So get cracking.
6. Taking #5 one step further, big challenges will no longer scare you away. You become willing to take risks, set big, meaningful goals, and dream big. You start to play bigger period — across all areas of life. When you do this, all the small stuff and trivial matters that typically would irk you suddenly disappear. You no longer judge your endeavors based on how hard or easy something is. Something once deemed as difficult now becomes what is merely unfamiliar.
7. You begin to see life for what it is: a journey in which all you ever do is work on yourself… and you fall in love with that process. When you see everything as an experiment and a vehicle for your growth, you are no longer focused on the destination. The destination disappears. Instead, you have fallen in love with the experience of life itself — the act of experiencing something, moving through it, observing the nuances, and then learning based on the feedback you receive and how it felt.

Getting To Your Truth

So if life comes down to experiences, what’s the point of having them?

Simply to uncover the truth.

This is the second piece to what makes life an experiment — and is arguably the most valuable.

The journey of personal growth and spiritual unfoldment is inherently a collection of experiences: a quest to learn more and more about who we really are and what we are truly capable of.

The ups and downs, the zigs and zags, every new experience along with the familiar ones that play on repeat throughout our lives, are all there for us to discover (and remember) the truth of who we are: spiritual beings having a physical experience.

Like any experiment the average scientist conducts, the main goal is always about getting at the truth instead of being proven right. In the same way, life is about the pursuit of truth and finding meaning more than it is than being rich, famous, having six-pack abs, or being “the best”.