I Spent 3 Months Being Curious Instead Of Scrolling (Here's What Changed) // EXPERIMENT COMPILATION

Every year I get older, weirder, and way

more delusional. And my birthday is next

week, so the simulation that is my life

is due an expansion pack. In fact, call

me EA because much like the capitalist

dystopia they turned The Sims into, I am

also going to install my life

improvements in multiple small bites of

content rather than one comprehensive

and satisfying DLC because I am a

person, not a video game

company. EA, you suck. Anyways, this

video was sponsored by Just Kidding. Hey

friends, welcome or welcome back to my

channel. My name is Mia and I chat

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And if you end up liking this video,

give it a like, hype, comment for

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quick side note, I got my channel

avatars made. Guys, look at how perfect

these are. I'll put all the details of

the artist. It's Devin Smith. I'll put

everything in the description box, but

moment of appreciation because I love

them. Anyways, okay, back to the video.

This video is not about The Sims. Yeah,

sorry for the quick detour. It is about

how I'm planning to change my life over

the next 12 months [music] and

potentially, maybe, hopefully, help you

to do the same. I've created a whole

like action plan with monthly breakdowns

and free templates that you can use to

recreate this challenge yourself at

home. But first, what are we doing?

Listen, I know the new year is the time

for dramatic change. All the how to

become unrecognizable and change your

life in 30 days videos are popping off.

And I love that, okay? If I could do

that and have it create a long-lasting

impact on my life, best believe I would.

However, I have suffered myself for

almost 27 years at this point, and so

this video is not that. This video is a

slow and steady wins the race approach,

a year-long life improvement project

that prioritizes the practical, the

sustainable, and the actually feels good

internally over the dramatic aesthetic

transformation. This project factors in

things like the unrelenting ADHD demons

plaguing my brain and the fickle

mistress that is my motivation levels.

But in more literal terms, it's a series

of pre-planned life improvement

experiments over the course of the next

12 months tailored to fit my specific

life goals. So, why monthly experiments?

We can make a drinking game out of how

many times I'm going to say ADHD in this

video. Apologies in advance, but also

I'm of my life, so it kind of is what it

is. So, the idea of monthly experiments.

Basically, I think a lot ineffectively,

but you know, still thoughts. And goal

setting and tracking is something that I

have pondered extensively because on

paper, I am a goal girly. I love vision

boards, I love my planner, I love moving

forwards in my life, and yet, I cannot

set and track goals. I'll have vague

directions, loose life plans I plod

along towards, but specific goal setting

and monitoring is just not my strong

suit. Plus, even if I set a goal, a lot

of the time I'm essentially just

guessing what I should want or what I

should do. And then even if I hit it,

it's just like,

"Cool. I guess this is success." And

that's okay. It's hardly ruining my

life. I mean, I don't think it is. I

guess it could be a timeline where type

A me is already retired and eating

bonbons in Helle cows, but I've just

wondered if maybe there's an alternative

way. And maybe that way is to decenter

linear goals and our preconceived

success looks like in favor of a more

experimental approach. [music]

Enter the experimental mindset. Now,

bear with me here. I promise it's

relevant, but one of the benefits of

keeping a media journal is that it's

really easy to pinpoint direct sources

of inspiration, even if they've been

brewing subconsciously for a few months.

There are many videos and articles and

books inspired this project, and I'll

mention them as they become relevant,

but the concept of the experimental

mindset was a 100% adopted from the

video fix your destructive mindset in 15

minutes on Big Think. Obviously, go

watch that video. It's linked in the

description as is the written version

also on their Substack because

personally, if I'm learning, I prefer

reading, but that's just me. Um but

anyways, a brief top line is it talks

about how there are three subconscious

mindsets that hold us back. Cynicism,

perfectionism,

and escapism.

And we can plot each of these mindsets

on a grid against two characteristics,

ambition and curiosity. Escapism is high

curiosity but low ambition, whereas

perfectionism is high ambition but low

curiosity, and cynicism is just low

all-round negative vibes. And these

mindsets are fluid, by the way. They can

all be changed. The sweet spot, however,

is the mindset that has high ambition

and high curiosity, the experimental

mindset. To quote, "In an experimental

mindset, you're open to uncertainty. You

see it as an opportunity to explore, to

grow, and to learn. When you have an

experimental mindset, instead of chasing

those linear goals that give you the

illusion of certainty, you're open to

designing experiments. Having an

experimental mindset means seeing

failures as data points that you can

learn from. It means being open to

making mistakes because you know you're

going to learn from them. It means

embracing the fact that you might not

have a plan, that you don't know what's

coming, and this is great. It means you

can design your life in a way [music]

that is conscious and connected. Now,

for me personally, I've had to reframe

my mindset a lot as an adult because of

the aforementioned ADHD demons. I

remember a tweet or something that made

the rounds a few years ago. It's

basically like unmedicated ADHD is just

a pendulum swing between perfectionism

and rampant chaos. And I could not agree

with anything more. So, the

experimentation mindset, even before I

had a name for it, is something I've

really tried to adopt in my life because

being too rigid with my thinking was

ultimately incompatible with my brain

and it just made me sad. But, since

learning about the concept of the

experimental mindset, I really want to

lean into it for 2026 and see how it

goes. Okay, so we are going to talk more

about how to cultivate an experimental

mindset later in this video when we get

to setting our experiments. But for now,

just put a pin in this and remember that

the take-home is that we are setting

experiments to uncover how we want to

live our best life rather than setting

rigid goals based off predictions of

what that best life would be.

Step one, explore your curiosity, aka

mind map. So, my first step was actually

to create a mind map with the goal of

exploring my motivations, goals,

influences, all that jazz. Basically, an

exercise to think on paper and figure

out what areas of my life I really

wanted to improve. I made a point to do

this before looking at vision board

inspiration or anything like that just

so that these points were internally

driven. And fun fact, I'm using an

accordion insert of my new commonplace

journal for this. Something that really

helped me with this step was not

focusing too much on specific [music]

things and more the intention behind

them. So, like for example, buying a

house. I really want to buy a house,

it's a goal of mine. But if we drill

into that, it's more that I want the

perceived security of having a house,

the financial benefit of not throwing

money away on rent, and honestly, the