43 EXPERIMENTS TO SHAKE OUT OF A FUNK

an invitation to diy self-improvement

For the past few weeks, I’ve experienced many funks. I’ve been complaining about my lack of Substack growth, having the occasional existential crisis about my future as a creator and whether or not I’m on track to get married and be financially stable and pop some kids out pronto, and pouting that daylight savings time is this weekend, so I’m losing an hour, and therefore my entire weekend is fucked (yes, I am exaggerating, you are allowed to laugh).

Although I’m incredibly skilled at complaining and feeling incredibly ungrateful for my life, I don’t want to keep doing it. I’m wasting my time and therefore my life by indulging myself with these funks. One way I’ve mitigated these funks is through week-long experiments for myself. Time-constrained experiments allow myself a concrete way to approach an aspect of my life differently and change things up.

This week, I wanted to share my list of experiments to combat my often self-induced suffering. I invite you to make your own customized list for the next time you might be in a funk. Feel free to steal anything you want from this list.

be ur own mushu

THINGS TO FEEL MORE ALIVE

1. Put in extra time and effort to the things I *actually* care about.

2. Eat the spiciest food I can stomach and live with fire in my mouth.

3. Read

rob hardy

’s writing about building businesses fueled by aliveness, and apply some of his principles to my life.

4. See if I can approach every situation playfully.

5. Every morning when I wake up, yell “I LIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” at the top of my lungs!

6. Host a day-long writing retreat with people I like.

7. Propose to someone. (Unless you're in a serious relationship, this is a joke. Keeping this in for myself because I actually might one day!)

8. Go to a forest or lie down on top of a large rock and cry.

9. Cry for 3 hours straight.

ENERGY LEVELS

1. For an entire week, try to get 80% of my normal results by putting in 20% of the effort.

2. Eat 3x the amount of veggies every day for the next week.

3. During the weekend, spend three hours per day outside in the sun.

4. Write down everything I eat, and note which foods make me feel more or less energized afterwards.

5. Try a new type of exercise, like weighted hula hooping or jiu jitsu.

6. Spend a weekend without my phone (ok, fine, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Twice per day for fifteen minutes max instead).

7. Sleep an extra thirty minutes a day.

8. Decline invites + requests that I don't actually want to do or feel a little uncomfortable about.

9. Try taking magnesium.

SERENDIPITY

1. Reach out to someone I’ve fallen out of contact with and ask to catch up.

2. Give someone I don't know very well 10 bucks.

3. Invite friends and a few strangers over to dinner.

4. Give someone a thoughtful gift.

5. Embody "fuck it, I'm not sabotaging myself this time!" energy for a week, and do things that I’ve been scared of doing.

6. Try a new flavor of potato chips or check out some new snacks.

7. Follow up with someone who owes me a message.

SLYTHERIN NETWORKING AND GROWTH MOVES (BUT IN A GENUINE WAY)

1. Tweet/ write/ create in the style of someone who inspires me.

2. Hop on a call with someone who I think is cool. Then ask if they are willing to intro me to someone else.

3. DM someone and suggest an easy way to collaborate.

4. Do someone a five minute favor. Then tell them about it. (Taken from

Jason Levin

, btw check out his free cold email guide.)

5. Email one of my favorite writers telling them I loved their book or their Substack post. See if they reply, and invite them to coffee in Austin if they’re ever in the area.

6. Incorporate pop culture into more of my tweets and Substack posts.

7. Try out TikTok.

8. Learn more about how humor works and try to make my posts funnier.

THINGS THAT ARE GOOD FOR THE SOUL

1. Write a hand-written letter to someone who’s helped me out a lot expressing gratitude.

2. Follow through with my promises: are there people I made commitments to, but didn’t follow through with? Follow through on as many as I can, and apologize for those that I cannot keep.

3. “Call your parents. They miss you.” (Saying by Joseph J Lam of Parents are Human)

4. Watch Everything, Everywhere All at Once again to reset my soul.

5. Do an inventory of all my current priorities and goals, and whether I’m on track to meet them. Is there anything I can re-evaluate and drop?

6. Implement stuff from

Sasha Chapin

's "How to Encourage Others"

7. Apologize to someone who I owe an apology to. Then apologize to two other people.

8. Go to a week long (or at least 3 days) meditation retreat.

9. Face something I’ve been avoiding. See if I can do it without any self-blame.

10. Ask people for things or let them know about my services (whatever I end up offering), get at least 5 rejections.

Do let me know if you end up making a list for yourself, I’d love to hear about it, especially if your experiments are a bit out there.