👨‍🔬 Why I’m Focusing on Experiments Instead of Habits

Tomorrow is Akṣaya Tṛtīyā, one of the most auspicious days in the calendar for starting something new. It’s said that whatever is begun on this day will not diminish (kṣaya), making it the perfect time to step into something fresh. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I love using special days like this as springboards for new habits, projects and directions.

I’ve also written here multiple times about how Ekādaśī is a powerful time for reflection and reassessment—an auspicious time to pause and ask what’s working in your life and sādhana, what’s not, and what gentle changes might carry you to the next Ekādaśī. I still really like that rhythm and process, but I’ve recently noticed I’ve fallen out of the habit of tracking my progress that way.

This led me to ask: Why is it so hard to keep up habits, even ones I care about?

I’ve read books like Atomic Habits by James Clear, which offers practical, research-backed systems for habit-building. I’ve used some of those tools successfully and now have a very strong daily journaling and exercise habit as a result. But lately, I’ve felt unmotivated by the very idea of building “good habits.” There’s something heavy about it, like constantly trying to reengineer who I am.

That’s why I was intrigued when I came across a fresh approach in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s book Tiny Experiments, based on a concept she calls PACTs. (I’m not going to break that down acronym, because I’m not yet fully familiar with it.) Rather than committing to habits you’re supposed to do forever, you commit to a short, clearly defined experiment. It’s not about fixing yourself—it’s about learning something new. The energy shifts from “I need to become this kind of person” to “I wonder what will happen if I try this?”

It’s a scientist’s mindset. Before running an experiment, a scientist decides on how many trials they’ll do and how long they’ll observe it for. Why? Because without a defined number of trials and an end point, it’s too easy to quit when motivation dips. But if you push through just a few more trials, you might discover something unexpected—something you would have missed if you gave up too soon.

In traditional goal-setting, success means achieving a specific result. If you don’t hit the target, it feels like failure. But in the scientist’s approach, success simply means learning. If you learned something new—even if that something doesn’t work—you succeeded.

That’s why I find this experiment-based approach so refreshing. There’s no soul-crushing guilt, no collapse of self-confidence when things don’t go as planned. It feels lighter, more playful. Less about identity and more about curiosity. Not “This is who I want to be,” but “Let’s see what happens.”

So this Akṣaya Tṛtīyā, I’m trying something different. I’m approaching the things I want to do with an experimental mindset.

How to Make an Experiment

It’s simple:

1.   Define the action.

2.   Define the duration.

Some examples:

• “I’ll recite Chapter Twelve of Bhagavad-gītā every day before turning on my computer from Ekādaśī till the next Ekādaśī (and see if I start to memorize it).”
• “I’ll take one photo every day for a month.”
• “I will read a Rays of The Harmonist article with a friend every Sunday until Ratha-yātrā time.”
• The author of Tiny Experiments challenged herself to write 100 articles in 100 weekdays.

My Process for Choosing Experiments

I’m going to share the experiments I’m starting tomorrow on Akṣaya Tṛtīyā in case it gives you ideas or inspiration to try your own.

You definitely don’t have to do it this way—this is just what I’m trying out. To figure out which experiments I wanted to begin, I first took a moment to reflect on what I’d like to focus on right now. I ended up dividing my focus into two simple categories:

• Personal (things I want to do for myself)
• Sevā (a particular sevā project for others)

And within each, I chose a “main thing” and a “side thing.”

Personal

1.   Main: I want to be able to confidently explain the topic of the nature of the jīva in my own words—and in the process, develop a deeper love for studying śāstra.

2.   Side: I want to read the Śikṣāṣṭaka in Bengali and improve my comprehension of spoken Bengali through listening to stories.

Sevā

1.   Main: Finish preparing the rest of the Gauḍīya Gīti-guccha for proofreading.

2.   Side: (Already started on New Year’s Day!) Write 24 articles for Vine of Devotion by the end of the year.

Experiments I’m Starting

1.   Study experiment: By Nṛsiṁha Caturdaśī (11 days from now), I’ll create 7 written or audio reflections on what I’ve read about the nature of the jīva. Each session of study, writing, or speaking will last at least 50 minutes. For added motivation, I’ll explain what I’ve learned to my friend Chandrashekhar at least three times during this period. (I’m tracking all of this in my notebook.)

2.   Language experiment: Continue reading the Bengali of Śikṣāṣṭaka before we read the English in our daily online reading group. I also have a YouTube playlist of Bengali stories I will listen to. I’ll get through them before we finish Sikṣāṣṭaka.

3.   Sevā experiment: Complete 3 hours of deep work (timed) on song translation or fidelity checking, five days a week until the end of May. I’ll make a checklist of all songs to complete in my notebook, post it in the Nurturing the Seed Google and WhatsApp groups, and post a picture of my progress on Nṛsiṁha Caturdaśī and again at the end of the month.

I’m totally new to this experiment-based system and haven’t yet finished reading Tiny Experiments, but I’m diving in anyway and hoping to learn as I go.

If this idea resonates with you, then maybe you’d like to start your own experiment(s). I’d love to hear what it is. Feel free to reply to this email or post it in the Nurturing the Seed community—we’re here to support each other.

Okay, that’s all for now! Let’s explore together—with curiosity, not pressure.

Haribol!