One of the things I wanted to do after leaving my full-time job was to take advantage of the many possibilities the city I live in has to offer and in general to go out and start doing new things. I’ve always had a list of books I wanted to read or activities I wanted to try out “one day.” So I practiced Kundalini yoga for two weeks, tried out boxing by taking a few classes or traveled alone for the first time in my life just to name a few. But after checking a lot of things off my list, I’ve slowly been sliding into a rut again and find myself rather do familiar things and go to places I already know than discover something new.
Start Doing New Things
This needs to change. I feel like I’m not taking advantage of the opportunities I have in front of me. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in work and everyday life. Oftentimes, we live our comfortable life without looking left and right and without questioning what we’re actually doing. We rarely scrutinize our lifestyle and the familiarity of the people we surround ourselves with or the activities we engage in on an everyday basis. Maybe there’s more out there that we would enjoy or that would add to our life that we can’t even pinpoint before taking action. But in order to find out if there’s something that we’re missing in our lives, we actually need to leave our comfort zone and seek it out. It’s not gonna fly to us, that’s for sure.
Benefits Of Doing New Things
Trying out new things can have a lot of benefits. It can challenge us to get out of our comfort zone. Especially for people who are really set into their routines or who are suffering from any degree of social anxiety/awkwardness (I’m putting myself in this category), this can be a really great way to open up more, meet new people and broaden one’s horizon. It can help us find a new hobby or interest and it gets us to think and talk about something different than the usual. In the end, it just may make us a little happier.
My Project
I want to make a commitment to myself and start doing new things. My project is partially inspired by hers and hers and I’m also borrowing a few “things categories” from here. The categories are:
- Books & Movies
- Physical Activity
- Food
- Personal Challenges
- Mundane Things
- Health & Wellness
- Exploring NYC And Surrounding Areas
- Miscellaneous
I’ve started to create a list covering all these categories here.
My goal is to do at least one new thing per week for the following year. Find my list here. I’ll make a new list at the end of this project at the beginning of May 2018* and start anew. Or that’s the goal at least. I will also try and document all new things (or the interesting ones) here on the blog. I also reserve my right to change my list as I go. That means I might delete things and exchange them for something new if I need to.
*UPDATE (May 2018):
I’m not able to complete the list in time as I’m busy working with clients at the moment. However, I’m determined to finish the list, but allow myself more time. A new list will come as soon as this one is done!
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Do you have any suggestions what I should try or do? Also, how do you challenge yourself to get out of your own rut and do new things?
