Poke the world

Do you sometimes wonder why life can feel so mundane? Today, we're diving into the exhilarating realm of trying new things, embracing the unknown, and poking the world to see what happens. Stick around to find out why and how poking the world can lead you to success and happiness.

Why Try Stuff?

Before we go in-depth on how we are going to try new things, it’s probably good to start off by asking why it is important to try new things and embrace the unknown. Why should I make it a priority in my life? Essentially, what's in it for me?

Firstly - Trying things makes us happy.
When we try new things, we are opening ourselves up to a whole new world that didn’t really exist to us in a large way. Seeing how we make progress on things gives us a sense of achievement and enjoyment. We become more comfortable with being uncomfortable and overcoming our fear of failure and the unknown. We are no longer bored because we are busy with the thing.

Secondly - Learning and experimenting makes us more interesting and valuable.
When we learn something new, we have something else in our conversation tool belt, and we have a wider array of things we can talk about. Trying new things can also lead you to become a part of a larger community of people that are also interested in the same things as you and you could, as a result, form new friendships. When we start shifting towards the mindset of trying new things, we also can potentially become more valuable within the workplace. You could, for example, in trying something new, stumble upon something that increases your productivity or makes you stand out. Skill stacking in such a unique way that you become far more valuable to your employers than before.

Thirdly - The knock-on effect of trying new things:
Once you start trying new things, you are highly likely to find something that you actually really enjoy doing and that brings you a lot of fulfillment from just doing the thing. But it doesn’t even end there; when we pursue new things more and become good at the things we try, there are a number of side benefits that we gain as a byproduct. We start to build more confidence as we have more skills or knowledge to draw from.

A great way to truly increase your confidence comes from knowing that you are competent and capable. Learning new things builds character as you had to push through the uncomfortable first part of being bad at the thing you are trying at first and helps you build resilience and tenacity. It also stimulates creativity by applying your brain to things you have not yet tried before. You start to grow as a person and can add more skills and abilities to your tool belt, leading to a deeper sense of personal growth.

Learning new things has been shown to improve your mental, emotional, and, depending on the thing you are trying, also your physical health. You never really quite know what can happen when you try new things, and that’s the beauty of it. You are forging a new path for yourself in your own life journey by trying new things.

Fourthly - People that changed the world tried things:
If we need more motivation and reason for us to be convinced to try new things and challenge our own status quo, remember nothing amazing happened from people doing nothing. The people who were found changing history were those who were found preoccupied with something, and generally something new. Pretty much all of the most revolutionary changes and advancements in history came from people who were devoted to trying things.

For example, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is considered to be one of, if not the, smartest people to have ever lived. He was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a mathematician, an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, and a writer. I think it is safe to say he tried things. He had an innate curiosity and just kept exploring. Curiosity and inspiration when combined with action can lead, and often do lead, to great things over time. Now, I am not saying that if you decide to try things and go where your curiosity leads you, that you will become world-famous and end up in history, but if you do dare to try things, you open yourself to the possibility of having your life changed forever.

Criteria for What to Try

So we have now thoroughly gone through many reasons as to why we should try new things and do stuff. Now we need to pick what we are actually going to try. We have endless options at our disposal, and that is generally overwhelming. Most studies say that when we have far too many options, we tend not to choose anything because we are afraid of making the wrong decision. This is called paralysis of analysis.
So we need to create a system for whittling down our options on what we decide to try and pursue. We do not have to be married to any of these options. That’s the beauty of trying things. We try things and give them enough time to see if we will enjoy them. If we see after a while that this does not inspire curiosity in us, then we move on to the next, having learned and grown in the process.

Criteria No. 1: Does it excite you?

Before you decide to try something, you should already know your general likes and dislikes and what are the things that already pique your curiosity. Start with those. Write a list of all the things you can think of that you find interesting and invite curiosity inside you. Then, next to that, write down things you can try and do that connect to those initial interests and curiosities. You can even give them a score from 1 to 5 on how much they excite you and go from there.

Criteria No. 2: Is it in line with skills you already have or want to acquire?

You probably have a few skills already, some of which you might not even be aware of because they are second nature to you. If you struggle with figuring out what skills you have, go to someone you know well and ask them to list out the skills they see in you. If you already have a skill in, let’s say, photography, maybe you might want to try your hand at videography as well, or graphic design. Something that might in some way be connected to a skill you already have. We will generally find it easier to do something new that we already have an edge on because of other skills we can leverage. This example can go beyond just focusing on the acquisition of skills.

Criteria No. 3: Is it intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated?

A good question to always ask yourself when pursuing something new, whether that be skills, goals, dreams, etc., is what are the underlying motivational factors at play here? Why do I actually want to try and do this thing specifically? Is it because I think I might get external recognition for this thing? If that is the case, I would urge you to reconsider.

Generally, if our motivation is purely extrinsic, we will very quickly lose motivation to pursue the thing, and for good reason, the thing we wanted to try was not our own. We thought we should pursue it. Intrinsic motivation is that you are genuinely personally curious about what you want to do and want to do it for personal reasons other than external validation. If you are internally motivated, you will enjoy the process more and be excited to try and do.

Criteria No. 4: What are your metrics for success? How will you know once you have done it? (Measure your progress)

Something to keep in mind when pursuing something new, whatever it is, is to ask yourself how will you know when you have achieved success in the thing you wanted to try? Is it linked to a certain outcome like, "I want to be able to run a marathon"? Or is it more process-based, like "I want to become a runner" (identity change)? Whatever you are trying to achieve, be sure that your outcome is defined. This will help you assess where you are in terms of progress and achievement, which will also help you keep interest, excitement, and find joy in doing the thing.

Point 3: Barriers to Trying New Things: How to Overcome Them

We briefly touched on some reasons as to why we might struggle with getting started with trying something new. Here are some common barriers to trying new things and how to overcome them.

It’s inconvenient:
Trying something new is always inconvenient. We have to fit it into our schedule, we might and often do forget to do it, and life gets in the way. We counter this by firstly making sure this is something we are excited about. If you enjoy it, you won’t forget to do it as easily. Set aside a time whenever works for you and put it in your calendar. What gets scheduled gets done. Make it as easy as possible to do the thing.

Fear of failure and rejection:
We often fear failure or rejection or even fear of people as well. We do not want people to see us fail at stuff. Firstly, we need to redefine failure in this context. We are trying something new. Therefore, you cannot really fail as all this is up to you and self-inflicted in a sense. See failure as a learning curve and a signal that you are growing instead.

Change is hard:
We tend to stay in our comfort zones for the very reason that they are called comfort zones. We do not feel uncomfortable, awkward, or challenged. Changing the current status quo will take some initial energy, and that is often very hard. So that is why it is important to create a system around what you would like to do and try and make it as easy as possible to start.

You never know what might happen.

So till now, we have gone over some ideas of what we want to try and pursue. We identified all the criteria by which we will then decide what to try and pursue. Then we made a list and chose the thing we are going to try. We also went over some fears and barriers we often run into when trying new things. Now all that is left for us is to schedule and do the thing. Once we start doing something and really pursue it, you cannot guarantee that it will work the way you imagined it, but you also never know what might happen. One thing is for sure: it will change your life in some way because you tried. And you never know what might happen when you try.

So go and poke the world and see what happens when you do. Dare to dream and dare to do. When you do, you will find that you start living a more fulfilling and intentional life.

Thank you guys for reading this blog, till next time.

Bye bye