🤫 Psst… I did one new thing a week for a year. You can enjoy my weekly adventures at justdostuff.co.uk
I stumbled on the secret of happiness one day, in Montenegro.
My wife and I were on honeymoon, travelling around Europe for a month. We visited Kotor - an old town full of cats. We heard wolves howling outside our room in Dubrovnik at night. Every day was packed with new experiences.
After a month, we called a family member back home. They said, ‘A month? It feels like you left yesterday.’ But to us, it felt like a lifetime - because every single day had been filled with rich experiences.
Before that, time seemed to be flying by in a blur, and I was pretty miserable, to be honest. I realised: experiences are a way to slow down time, to feel more alive, and to be happier and healthier.
And that’s something we all need, especially now. Screens are making us miserable. There’s research showing links between screen time and depression and anxiety, and apps like TikTok, for example, has been shown to mess with your perception of time (which, I suppose, isn’t surprising for something called TikTok).
And we don’t embed screens in memory the way we do real life. Have you ever seen a phone in your dreams? Exactly. A study found that people walking through a museum remembered exhibits less when they took photos, compared to just seeing them with their eyes.
Experiences need to be experienced, out there in real life, not just seen on a screen. (With the possible exception of Two Girls, One Cup.)
Routines are also ruining us. Especially being indoors all the time. One study found that under lockdown, people’s amygdalae - the part of the brain that detects threats - grew. Isolation and confinement physically altered our brains. And time warped too. Lockdown felt unreal.
Could the solution really be as simple as… just doing stuff?
Yes. Yes, it could.
Follow my adventures: JustDoStuff.co.uk
Experiences make us happier. One study found that people who bought experiences, rather than material items, were 6% happier after doing so. It’s true that you can own nothing and be happy. Just look at the Dalai Lama versus the Pope. Who’s happier?
So, with all that in mind, I committed to doing one new thing every week for a year. I made a list. Checked it twice. My wife and four-month-old son were so delighted for me. And if they’d known I’d spend £12,000, I’m sure they’d have been delighted about that, too.
It was a year that saw me bungee-jump over Battersea Park. My biggest fear was soiling myself, but I didn’t. and nothing you, my wife, or the many onlookers and St John’s Ambulance volunteers can say will convince me otherwise.
I even got on TV. I made it to the final round of interviews for The Traitors, but apparently, I wasn’t charismatic enough. Instead, I went on a daytime quiz show called Riddiculous, where a father-and-son duo stole a riddle answer from me, costing us the win. It’s fine. I hold no grudge against the man who beat us, nor equally his frog-faced geek of a son.
My favourite experience? Letting ChatGPT control my entire day in Cannes. I didn’t have to think, just follow orders. Bliss. It did make me eat three pizzas, and while the first two were great, the third was a bit of a struggle. It had so much oil, Tony Blair wanted to invade it.
My lowest point? Day trading.
I tried to make £100 in one day. I did. Easy. Life-changing. The next day, I got a little cocky, and lost £2,500. My wife consoled me, ‘But you made £100 yesterday! So really, you only lost £2,400, if it helps.’
Follow my adventures: JustDoStuff.co.uk
Still, the experiences changed me. I don’t just mean they made me poorer (although, yes, that is true). I learned things about why experiences work.
Here are just three of them.
Escape
It’s not just what you’re going into, it’s what you’re escaping from. Giving up control to ChatGPT for the day was freeing from the risk, responsibility and am-I-spending-my-time-wisely anxiety of a holiday.
On the other hand, going into a flotation tank left me with nothing but my anxieties for a whole hour. Being left alone with my thoughts was terrifying. They were horrible. But confronting them felt like a massage for my brain. I skipped out of there.
There’s research on this: in one study, students were asked to sit in silence for 15 minutes. They were given the option to shock themselves. 43% chose electric shocks over sitting in silence with their own thoughts.
Illusion
Even fake experiences matter. Psychological research has shown that imagined fears are as strong as real ones, and it’s the same with joy, awe, excitement.
I met a psychic in a pub, for example. She said she was a medium (though I’d say she was below-average at best) and asked if I knew a John who’d died. I said no, I did have a friend called John, but he wasn’t dead, although he did look a bit peaky last time I saw him. She said he’d been going through a lot. I said no, but another friend called Dave had. She said, ‘Yes! That’s the one.’
It was obviously nonsense - but she gave me surprisingly good advice about business, and friendship, which I’ve carried with me. There was wisdom in a surprising place, as inauthentic as it was.
Struggle
The most memorable experiences weren’t particularly fun. In fact, they pushed me right out of my comfort zone.
Take the Valentine’s Day dance class I did with my wife. Oti Mabuse from Strictly Come Dancing was there. It was my wife’s Strictly fantasy come true - if by ‘fantasy’ you mean awkwardly shuffling around a warehouse off the A40, surrounded by mirrors so you could see exactly how terrible you are. But we loved it. The awkwardness made it fun.
Or take the cuddle workshop I did. You haven’t lived until you’ve locked eyes with a strange man while holding his grizzled face in your palms for a full minute. I hated it, it was the one I was dreading most - but it turned out to be one of the most memorable, fun, and transformative.
There’s a psychological concept called the effort justification effect - the more effort or struggle something takes, the more we value it.
So there you have it.
My 52 experiences really did change me. Now I do one new thing every weekend (even if it’s just going to Birdworld); it slowed down time; it improved not just my mental health but my physical health too.
It was one of the best years of my life.
And you can read about it all at JustDoStuff.co.uk.
What would be on your list?
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