“When you are un-thinking, following patterns that you’ve been following, you can not easily make life better.” - Sebastian Marshall

I’ve talked about agency-expanding experiments before. I use the term to describe things you can do but normally wouldn’t. They are ways to catapult you out of autopilot mode, help you become friends with The Resistance, and increase your agency, arguably the most important personality trait.

Here’s an ever-growing list of my favorite agency expanding experiments:

• Ask in coffee shop for free glass of tab water
• Buy and wear an unreasonably expensive outfit.
• Go for a walk in a dark forest alone.
• Go for a walk on a graveyard. At night. Alone.
• Spend a day alone in nature
• Go on a trip to a foreign country alone.
• Hire a coach/tutor (fitness, coding, entrepreneurship, whatever)
• Go to a local cafe to read a book.
• Host small virtual gathering or conference on topic I care about
• Host small offline gathering or conference on topic I care about
• Ask a stranger for help.
• Send a message to 5 people you lost contact with. Check their social profile, personal website, and read or watch any content they published. Then share a few thoughts or questions. Or simply ask: “Hey, hope you’re doing well! What are you up to these days?”
• Write a message to your favorite author.
• Write a message to every single person who’s work you found useful at a given day to say thanks.
• Cancel all of your subscriptions.
• Give a huge tip in a restaurant.
• Book a night in the most expensive hotel in town.
• Book a night in a hostel dorm.
• Go to the most expensive restaurant in town.
• Go to the shadiest part of town and join the kids there for a match of basketball/football.
• Give a stranger a compliment.
• Dress up, use perfume, make your hair, on a day you’re not meeting anyone or even leave the house.
• Ask someone in your local gym for help.
• Select all emails in your email inbox and put them into the archive. (All truly important messages are sent twice anyway.)
• Hire an accountability coach.
• Organize a local football match/basketball match.
• Hire a personal assistant to handle general tasks for you.