Discover What Works in the Laboratory of Your Life
What would happen if you stopped trying to change your life perfectly—and started treating change as a series of experiments?
Experiments in Personal Change is a practical guide to learning more about yourself, testing new approaches and discovering what genuinely works in your own life.
Rather than offering a fixed formula for success, the book invites you to become the researcher of your own experience.
[Buy the Paperback]
[Buy the Kindle Edition]
Personal Change Is Not a Straight Line
Most approaches to personal development tell us to set goals, create a plan and follow it with discipline.
Real life is rarely that simple.
We try things that do not work. Our priorities change. Unexpected events intervene. We lose motivation, learn something new or discover that the original goal was not right for us.
That does not mean we have failed.
It means we have gathered information.
The laboratory approach replaces judgement with curiosity.
Instead of asking:
Why can’t I get this right?
We can ask:
What is this experience teaching me?
Life Is a Laboratory
The central idea of this book is simple:
You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin.
You can plan, act, observe, reflect and adapt.
Each attempt becomes an experiment.
Some experiments produce the result you expected. Others surprise you. Some fail completely—but even those can provide valuable evidence about what to try next.
Over time, you begin to build a personal body of knowledge about your habits, strengths, motivations, values and preferred way of living.
The goal is not perfection.
The goal is learning.
What You Will Explore
The book includes ideas and practical experiments related to:
- Setting meaningful goals
- Turning goals into direction rather than pressure
- Building helpful habits
- Working with procrastination
- Developing focus and mindfulness
- Taking small, manageable risks
- Learning from failure and setbacks
- Strengthening curiosity and resilience
- Directing your attention more deliberately
- Continuing to learn throughout life
- Reflecting on experience
- Designing your own personal experiments
You do not need to complete every experiment.
Choose the ideas that seem relevant, test them in your own life and pay attention to the results.
Goals as a Compass, Not a Stick
Goals can help us move towards a preferred future.
But they can also become a source of guilt, pressure and self-criticism.
In this book, goals are treated as a compass rather than a stick.
A compass gives you direction. It helps you decide which way to move. But it does not punish you when the landscape changes or when you need to take a different route.
You are allowed to pause, reconsider and change direction.
The goal is there to serve your life. Your life is not there to serve the goal.
Failure Is Feedback
An unsuccessful experiment is not necessarily a failed experiment.
If an approach does not work, you have learned something.
You may discover that:
- The goal was too large
- The timing was wrong
- The method did not suit you
- You needed more support
- Your motivation was different from what you assumed
- The goal itself was no longer meaningful
Failure becomes useful when it helps shape the next experiment.
This shift—from judgement to curiosity—is at the heart of the laboratory approach.
About the 2026 Edition
The first edition of Experiments in Personal Change was published in 2015.
Eleven years later, I returned to the book with new experiences, new questions and new tools.
The world had changed.
I had changed too.
The 2026 edition includes new reflections on curiosity, resilience, attention, lifelong learning, beginner’s mind, futures thinking and the role of experimentation in personal change.
Some ideas from the original book have been revised. Others have been removed. New sections have been added to reflect what I have learned since 2015.
The revision process also became an experiment in its own right:
Can one author revisit, redesign and relaunch a book using artificial intelligence and modern digital tools—without losing the human experience at its centre?
AI helped me examine the writing, challenge assumptions, explore alternatives and improve the presentation.
But the stories, decisions, experiences and reflections remained human.
Who This Book Is For
This book may be useful to you if:
- You want to make a change but do not know exactly where to begin
- Traditional self-help advice feels too rigid
- You start goals enthusiastically but struggle to maintain them
- You are moving through a period of transition
- You enjoy learning through action
- You want to become more curious about your own behaviour
- You are looking for a kinder and more practical approach to personal development
- You believe life is something to explore rather than control
You do not need to reinvent your whole life.
One small experiment can be enough to begin.
Start With One Experiment
Choose one question.
Try one small action.
Notice what happens.
Reflect on the result.
Then decide what to do next.
That is how meaningful change often begins—not through one dramatic transformation, but through a series of small experiments.
[Buy the Paperback]
[Buy the Kindle Edition]
About the Author
Thomas J. Carroll is an educator, author and lifelong learner.
Over the course of his career, he has worked across agriculture, entrepreneurship, environmental resource management, international development, education and online learning.
His work explores curiosity, lifelong learning, future skills and the idea that life can be approached as a laboratory.
He is also the author of Future Skills 2030 and the creator of Life Is a Laboratory.
Follow the Book Marketing Experiment
The publication of the 2026 edition is only the beginning.
I am treating the relaunch as a Digital Business Laboratory experiment:
Can I relaunch a book using AI, digital marketing and an experimental mindset—and discover what actually helps it reach readers?
I will share the actions I take, the results, the mistakes and the lessons learned.
[Follow the Book Marketing Experiment]
Join the Laboratory
Life Is a Laboratory is about curiosity, personal experiments and lifelong learning.
Join the email list to receive new articles, experiments and reflections.