Sampling is a powerful tool for discovering what you like. New York has an abundance of gyms, so I got trial memberships from a few of them and was surprised by how many new things I discovered about myself.

I went to a hot yoga class at Equinox, just because I wanted to try a class, and I had done yoga a few times before. I found out that I really enjoyed the hot aspect of the practice, and started searching for other studios that offer hot yoga.

Similarly at another gym, I discovered that I really enjoy sitting in the sauna for 30 minutes. It lets me disconnect, think in the dark, and makes me feel better afterwards due to sweating. It wasn’t something I was looking for, but I ended up incorporating it into my routine and signed up to that gym because of their sauna.

All these discoveries happened because of sampling, even though I didn’t have a concrete goal in mind.