Challenge

Challenges

Periodically, I like to do a challenge for myself. It started out as a modification to the 75 Hard challenge. I know, according to the rules of that challenge, you aren’t supposed to make any modifications to the challenge. However, I also believe in living in the real world, and as a person dealing with chronic illness, a full-time job and a husband and father of six, I don’t see how it is feasible to have two 45-minute workouts (one of which must be outside) every single day to succeed.

So instead, I take inspiration from the 75 Hard challenge. I run my personal challenges for 75 days as well, because I feel that 75 Days feels like a nice, achievable number compared to 90 days. It is also long enough that it lets me really start to reshape my life around the patterns of the challenge.

I take the aspirational approach to the challenge. It is a chance to take a look at my life without guilt and ask myself “if I could snap my fingers, and it would be done, what are the things I would most like to see in my life? What does the life of the person I want to become look like?” From there I can work backwards.

I would like to be more well-read, so I should read every day. I would like to be a writer, so I should write something every day. I would like to be closer to Jesus, so I should dwell on His words every day. I want to be more thoughtful, so I should journal every day.

As a rule, I always keep the base of weighing myself, taking a progress picture, drinking 3+ liters of water every day and doing some sort of exercise as well.

Now I have a good base to start from, so the next question is, what is manageable? Is writing 1,500 words a day manageable for 75 straight days? Maybe, but probably not right away. What about 1,000, 750, 500? How much of a time commitment am I willing to give each part of this challenge? As I mentioned before, I have other considerations in my life that I have to take into account. I want to do the challenge, but I mustn’t prioritize the challenge above my family or my health. Many of the goals have a minimum, but I’m not giving myself a maximum. If the muse strikes, I would rather not ignore her.

I find that using SMART criteria helps here. I would like to take these aspirational goals and turn them into Specific, Measurable, Acheivable, Relevant, and Time-boxed tasks. The goals I’ve laid out for myself are generally not something I can see progress toward at the end of each day. But, if I set up my daily tasks right, I will have something that I can look to at the end of the day and say, “yes, I made progress today,” as I check it off.

Once I’ve organized these goals into achievable daily tasks, I track them each day. In various challenges I’ve used spreadsheets, notebooks, journals, and an app called Streaks. All are good, and I honestly will probably bounce between them this challenge. Streaks is definitely well suited to this, but having a pocket notebook, well, there’s something magical about a pocket notebook.

Today is the first day of my newest challenge, and I’m excited about it. I haven’t completed every challenge I’ve started. I’ve completed several, but not all. I want to keep updates going on this one, and I hope that will help me to complete it, as I’ll be doing it in public.

Here’s what I’m doing:

* There are days when I do physical activity above and beyond the norm. On these days, I sometimes allow myself to substitute this for the push-ups and sit-ups.

Wish me luck!