Day Thirty-Seven: The Novel Experience Challenge is Born!

Have I told you lately, dear reader, how grateful I am for you and your support?  I don't suppose that I have!  But please know that I know you are there and that I am truly appreciative of all of the people who have stopped by to read this blog and/or joined the fun on my Facebook page.  You guys rock!

One of my favorite positive psych books and my sentiment for today!

Since starting this blog a little over a month ago, I've had a surprisingly large amount of traffic from all corners of the world!  I've also had some wonderful experiences, some life altering, some not, but all of them completely novel.  However, the best part of this experiment has been the interactions I've had with the people who have taken the time from their busy schedules to read about what I'm doing.  I've received emails and comments, both here and through my Facebook page, that shared experiences, thoughts, suggestions, requests, impressions, opinions and support.  I've received text messages, emails and phone calls from friends with novel experience suggestions and offers to teach or join.  And, best of all, I've been able to share many of the experiences I've had with my loved ones.  

The relational aspect of this experiment is one of the many surprise side effects I have noticed so far.  Initially, I struggled with how self-indulgent blogging about my experiences seemed.  As a mother and psychotherapist, I spend the vast majority of my time nurturing and motivating other people to grow and increase their levels of  happiness.  However, my initial motivations for starting this experiment were all about me!   My relatively recent transition to motherhood and the addition of a new baby; the associated loss of some of the old ways that I had met my need for novelty; feeling directionless and lost after the attainment of my lifelong career goals and needing something more; a sense that I was no longer living life to the fullest; and having a birthday that triggered the beginning stages of a midlife crisis were all factors that culminated in the creation of  The Novel Experience Experiment.  However, I soon realized that the influx of novelty I was experiencing was resulting in an increase in my level of happiness, energy, enthusiasm, self-confidence, and sense of youthfulness while decreasing my levels of stress and anxiety.  By sharing my experiences, I could inspire others to do the same with (hopefully), similar results!  This put me on much more comfortable and familiar ground.

As the focus of this experiment broadened from being all about me to the possibility of inspiring and helping others to thrive, my thoughts turned to how I could encourage and include my readers in this experience.  In this vein, I added instructions and links for how people could try each of my novel experiences for themselves, posted discussions on my Facebook page, and created the Readers page on this blog to encourage everyone to share their own experiences with novelty.  Then, shortly after midnight last night, inspiration struck and The Novel Experience Challenge was born!  I published the page, posted a link on Facebook and went to bed.

Then I woke up...  Checked my email....  And found that people had actually signed on to the Challenge!  I was thrilled!  And a little overwhelmed!  As is often my habit, I put the cart before the horse and jumped in with both feet before I had worked out all of the details.  So today's novel experience was inspired by my motivation to remedy my lack of preparations.  Today, I developed and implemented a completely voluntary, pseudo-scientific experiment for the Novel Experience Challenge by creating pre and post-tests on SurveyMonkey.com.  You can view the pre-test here...  and, while you're there, feel free to take the pre-test and officially start the challenge!   Or skip the pre-test and start the challenge!  Or modify everything and create your own novelty challenge to fit within the confines of your life!  Regardless of how you challenge yourself, I'm very curious about how increasing the amount of novelty in your life might affect the way you feel!  

In conclusion, of the many lessons this experiment has taught me so far, the one that has rung the truest is that a novel experience shared with another person, both in real time and through writing, enhances both the experience and the relationship.  Facing a challenge, learning a skill, and/or laughing, with another person is a powerful bonding exercise!  So I would urge you to grab a partner, child or friend and let the novelty seeking begin!