Start 2026 with a fresh take on happiness and habits.

In this episode, Klaudia kicks off the 10-Day Wellbeing Habit Quest—no big resolutions, just one tiny wellbeing habit you can actually stick with. She’s joined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, award-winning neuroscientist and author of Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World.

Press play and join the Quest—your next small habit starts here.

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Hello happiness seekers. Welcome to the Happiness Challenge podcast. I'm Claudia Mitura and I'm on a mission to explore the best happiness hacks that science has on offer.

Like so many others, the pandemic cut me off from my family and work. So I decided to use my training as a psychologist to discover what science can tell us about the art of happiness.

What I found set me on the path to joy and now I'm ready to share my journey with you.

Each month I'm publishing three linked episodes where I'm speaking to a leading expert, putting their tips to the test and sharing my findings and feelings.

From mindfulness to exercise and random acts of kindness, I'll be sharing a light on the simple happiness habits that can bring more joy to our lives.

What's very exciting, you can Also now find 26 science backed principles on how to create more happiness at work, in relationships and in your own skin in my new book, the Alphabet of Happiness. So join me as I embark on my challenge and together we can become more successful, resilient and happy. Hello happiness seekers.

We are kicking off of something special, the ten day well Being Habit quest. No drastic resolutions here. For the next 10 days we'll focus on building one tiny wellbeing habit that lasts.

And to help us get started, I'm joined by Ann Laure Lacanthe, award winning neuroscientist and entrepreneur and author behind a fantastic book, Tiny Experiments. How to Live Freely in a Goal Obsessed World World.Welcome Alor,

Thank you so much for the amazing introduction.

So I'm very excited to talk to you about tiny experiments because it's really special vogue in the sense that it really encourages us to replace that rigid goal setting with those small, tiny experiments. Can you tell us a little bit more? Why is this approach more effective for creating habits that actualistic?

So if you're very clear in your head as to what you want to achieve, then having fixed goals can actually be helpful. But fixed goals are very rigid and they assume that you have this very clear vision and this clear plan.

The thing with habits is that you're not quite sure usually what exact habits are going to work for you. So.

So instead of saying here are the habits of this successful person that I'm going to copy and paste and then you're going to realize that these habits don't work for you and then you're going to blame yourself and fall into that negative cycle. Tiny experiments offer an alternative approach. And the idea here is to really approach your habits a little bit like a scientist.

Instead of starting from certainty and rigid goals, you start from curiosity. Curiosity. A little hypothesis. You ask, okay, what if I tried this habit? What would happen? Would that work for me? And how can I implement this habit?

And then you try the habit for a specific duration. You keep it small because you don't know yet if it works for you, and you observe the results.

What's great with this approach with tiny experiments is that if you don't manage to stick to the habit, that's okay. This is just data. You can learn from what worked and what didn't, and then you can adjust your approach.

I love that. And it's because it's based on curiosity, as you said, rather than almost like social comparison. Everyone is doing this. I should be doing this.

You kind of like, will this work for me? And why? And maybe why not? And I think that's really important, that idea of curiosity and is this going to serve me?

So for someone who might be feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start, start. How can we choose that first tiny experiment that is meaningful but manageable? As in, what is a good tiny experiment, if you like it, is in.

The name of the book Tiny Experiments. Right?

So the very first part that's very important is to start with something small, something actionable, something that you can try right now, Unfortunately, a lot of us fall into the trap of choosing habits or goals that are too big, too ambitious, and then we never get started because we're overwhelmed even before beginning. So it's really important to pick something small.

A misconception that a lot of people might have with building habits is that it's about adding more stuff, adding more activities. But if you're feeling overwhelmed, it can actually be about removing something or simplifying something.

So an example of a tiny experiment that I really like, and I always recommend to people when they don't know where to start, is, I will not bring my phone in my bedroom for the next two weeks. As you can see, this is not requiring any additional time, any additional energy.

This is really requiring making a little change and observing what happens when you do that. So really start by asking yourself, what are some very small changes that I could implement in my life?

And making sure to focus on habits you can experiment with that are actionable right now with your current resources.

Yes. And I think you saying this is a tiny experiment, probably so challenging. I'm straight away, like, what do you mean I won't have my phone near me?

But as you demonstrated, very simple. I don't have to spend lots of time. Resources is just a small change of how I behave.

And I guess at the end of that tiny experimentation, the reflection will be a big part of that process, right? Because in your example, I'm doing something for two weeks. So after that, what do I do?

How to reflect on our tiny experiment and actually decide whether we continue or we're going to drop it.

You touched upon something that I think is really important, is that an experiment has a duration.

So when you commit to a habit, normally you say, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, which makes no sense when you've never tried it before. Whereas with an experiment you say, I'm going to try this for a specific duration.

So when it comes to reflecting on the results, the important part is to not start judging the outcome while you're still conducting the experiment.

So just like a scientist who doesn't start poking at the data in the middle of the experiment and saying, oh, I don't like this, I'm going to stop collecting my data. You don't do that. You say, I'm going to try this for one week or for two weeks and I'm going to withhold judgment until I'm done.

When you're done, you can reflect. And for that I have a very simple tool that I call plus minus next.

It's very easy and it allows you to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what you might want to tweak next. So you just take a piece of paper, or you can do that in your notes, on your computer or on your phone, and you say plus in the first column.

Everything that went well, just a few bullet points, minus everything that didn't go so well, sources of friction, things that felt a little bit challenging.

And then next, so you don't stay stuck, you really start reflecting about the next iteration, the next cycle of experimentation, you say, okay, given the plus and the minus, what am I going to tweak? What am I going to change in my next iteration of this tiny experiment?

Oh my goodness, I love that framework.

I'm already drawing the columns because it is this idea of, yes, data, this is all data for my decision and then I can decide what to do next on the basis of that. And within that reflection, you mentioned something which I love about that not judging during the experimentation.

And I often feel that self criticism, perfectionist maybe shame when we don't stick to our habits can derail them. Right? Because if we feel, oh, this is not going well, I'm only halfway through and look at this, my phone is next to my bed.

Oh, no, I'm not going to continue. So how. I know that you said withdraw the judgment, but how can we do that?

How can we use this experience, experimental mindset, and that curiosity to soften this emotions to actually stay consistent?

It's really about pretending that you are a scientist with your life as a giant laboratory and really think about how does a scientist respond when things don't go to plan. They don't go like, oh, I'm such a terrible scientist, I'm going to quit my job. I'm terrible. No, they say, huh, interesting. What's going on here?

I did not expect that. What can we learn from this?

And the reason why is because scientists have learned to almost fall in love with problems, fall in love with uncertainty, and they're able to approach those difficulties, those problems, those challenges, not with anxiety, but with curiosity. So it's really a mindset change.

This is why I talk about the experimental mindset, really about embodying the spirit of being a scientist of your own life.

It's about every time you struggle, every time you don't do the things you said you were going to do instead of blaming yourself, putting your little scientist hat, or I would say I should say your lab coat on and say, oh, juicy. Interesting. What can we learn here?

I love that. I love the idea that when we failing or maybe, yeah, big, not happy with ourselves, we like, ooh, juicy. Let me dive deeper.

And I think that's really interesting because within that we can maybe discover. And again, I'm just talking from my own experience that the habit is too big or actually I'm not very committed from the identity point of view to.

To the habit. I'm more doing it because I feel like I should do it. So it's quite interesting. That juicy part can give us some additional insights.

Are there any other obstacles that you find from your work that you see people facing when trying to implement tiny experiments?

One of the biggest obstacles is social comparison.

And I think social media is making it even worse because it has created this giant leaderboard where we keep on comparing our results to the results of others. And people are not even sharing all of their results. They're sharing the perfect version of their results. And we compare ourselves to that.

And so obviously we always feel like we're falling behind, we're not making progress fast enough, and we start questioning our Sense of worth.

So I think it's really important if you really want to embody this experimental mindset, that instead of having this giant leaderboard that you keep on looking at on social media and comparing yourself to each others, that you really consider that you have your own little sandbox, your own little laboratory and you're running your own experiments and you're really designing habits and routines and rituals and working on projects based on your curiosity, which means that these are going to be so unique to you that there's no way you can compare yourself to others.

Oh great. Because if we treat it like that, we can also then very much soften our imposter syndrome, for example, that we're not progressing fast enough.

Yeah, love that. And it is tricky, right? It is tricky because he said those images are everywhere.

We can be going on our social media platforms for curiosity, for inspiration. That's our intention. And yet we see that and we start that comparison now.

Would you mind sharing a real example either from your life or from other people life or any kind of that you have anything that you have encountered of a tiny experiment that created a surprising or lasting shift in well being or level of happiness. And I love how much you nodding. You're like, yes, I have so many of these.

I'm very fortunate that I have lots of examples from the Nest Labs community because I've been learning from everyone running their own tiny experiments. And a lot of the examp examples in my book actually are real examples coming from the nestlabs community.

I'm going to share two of my favorite examples with you. So the first example was from someone in the community who I'll call Jay.

That's not their actual name, but for privacy reasons, Jay had gotten so busy with work that he lost touch with a lot of his friends. So he was working and then not answering messages.

And then it was weeks and months and he was communicating, feeling completely disconnected from the people he loved the most in his life. And the more he waited, the more guilt there was, the more shamed it was and he didn't feel comfortable reaching out.

So he designed a tiny experiment. He said, every week I will send one message to a friend I haven't talked to in a while.

And there is no pressure in terms of sending the best message or even getting a response. My job is just to send that message. And obviously his friends responded. They were so happy to have some news and he reconnected with them.

And so to me that's such a nice, simple example of how you can implement Tiny experiments in your personal life. Another one that I love was from an artist who had recently gotten surgery and who didn't paint for a while and didn't do any art.

And she had started developing this anxiety around her art, feeling like, oh, did I lose it? Did I lose my capacity for creativity?

And so in order to experiment around that, she said, I will go and sit in my studio for one hour every day and that's it. I don't have to do anything. I can just go and sit in my studio.

And after a while showing up every day for just one hour, she got bored just waiting, sitting there and doing nothing. And so she picked up her paintbrushes and she started creating again in a very gentle, self compassionate way.

The reason why I love this example is that tiny experiments are really a way to grow and to evolve and to get out of your comfort zone. Yes, absolutely. But it also shows that you can do that while being kind to yourself.

I love both of those examples because they are very different.

One is about that social connection and just one message and as you said, with no pressure that people respond, no pressure, what the message is about but reaching out. And then another one is more about reconnecting with yourself but giving you space.

And I was about to, I was waiting for you to say probably she got bored if I'll be sitting in my studio for one hour. But we need boredom for creativity.

So wonderful, wonderful that we can, we need space to reconnect with ourselves, to understand what's important to us. I love those. I love those. I have one personal one as well around sound healing breaks.

So I realized that in between hectic days I was getting quite stressed, but I didn't have much time in between to do something that was very involved. So I started this tiny experiment of listening for five minutes to sounds that really nurture me, sounds of nature.

And I actually was measuring my heartbeat to see whether it's going back to the resting. And it was. And now I very much do one to three minutes to just really calm down and come back to myself.

It's wonderful when we show up for ourselves with that compassion. Any final tips? Anything?

I haven't asked because I know this is incredible topic and we can be chatting forever here, but any final tips from your experience that you would like to share?

I would just say start tiny and whatever you discover, be kind to yourself. When you start experimenting, you're going to start a process of self discovery.

And sometimes you, you're going to discover things about yourself that are a little bit unexpected, Maybe something that you thought you were really good at and maybe you're not so good at. Maybe something you thought you loved and that maybe you don't love anymore and that's okay. That's more than okay. That's great.

That is the process of learning about yourself. That is the process of growth. And it can be absolutely amazing if you approach it from a place of self compassion.

And I think that's the key point, isn't it?

Because the moment we start feeling shame, guilt, we're not going to continue the idea like we need to create that playfulness curiosity for our brain and our bodies wanting to do something again. So love that love. Your final tip about self kindness. My final question, which I ask all of my guests is about what makes you happy.

Oh, for me it's movement moving my body.

As a neuroscientist, I spend a lot of time in the lab or in front of my computer and I really need for my mental health this balance of cognitive engagement in my work but outside of work having this more physical engagement. And so I dance a lot for example.

But sometimes it's just getting up in between meetings and stretching quickly or similar to sound bath tiny experiment, I will put some music on and I will just dance like no one's watching for a few minutes in my living room and then get, get back to work. So moving my body is something that makes me extremely happy.

Oh, that's wonderful. And instantly I just want to get hands on your Spotify playlist is what are you listening to?

What are the tracks that are like cheesy but we need them to move freely. Oh, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate this has been such incredible conversation. I loved love your book and it's so refreshing.

The mindset is so refreshing. So thank you so much again.

Thanks so much for having me.