Don’t we all love a bit of a challenge in life? I recently finished reading ‘Reading the 12 Week Year’ and what I’ve found is that you can really accomplish more in life if you approach life twelve weeks at a time and with my first twelve week cycle nearing it’s end (by the time this post is uploaded, it would have concluded). So, I thought, why not do a series of 30-Day Challenges to help with optimizing personal growth in the following three months. The first cycle was very career orientated, aiming to do the most and the best of my capabilities in the 12 weeks I could muster up the courage to do.
30-Day challenges are fantastic for personal growth because they provide a limited timeframe within which you can achieve something you’ve been wanting or needing to do for some time. It also helps having a stark timeframe within which you have to achieve a goal specified by you. The great thing is you can start any day of the week or month. The moment you commit, and define a goal, 30 days later you would achieved something in line with your goal, even if you haven’t achieved the goal, you will be closer to reaching it.
The thing to keep in mind when setting these goals is to remember to set them smartly (30 days is not a long time, but with proper time management and planning, a great deal of progress can be made. I use the S.M.A.R.T goal system. I know this system may be an outdated approach, but this, together with the 12 week year, has caused a significant shift in my life.
What are S.M.A.R.T. Goals?
In simple terms, S.M.A.R.T. Goals are ones that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. These goals are not merely wish lists for the hopeless, but a plan for the hopeful. Whether it is to improve a skill, make advancements in your career or finish up a project at home you have been meaning to finish for over a year (yes, those still creep in).
30-Day Challenge idea #1 Do a Deep Clean of your life
This sounds silly, but you would be surprised at how many things you gather over the course of a year or two. That, paired with day-to-day cluttering, everyone could benefit from a deep clean of their home, computer (private and work-based), workspaces (at home and work) and your cellphone (yes, delete the 10 000 pictures of your cat sleeping in different poses – no, I’m not kidding – when last have you really looked at them?). Set a SMART 30 day goal for decluttering and deep cleaning your life. Open all of your windows and allow old energy to be released, allowing space for the new energy to enter into your life.
How do we set the SMART goal for this challenge? Well:
- Specific – Declutter and deep clean every aspect of my life. Including my home, my professional workspace, my cellphone, my personal computer, my work computer and my car.
- Measurable – The unit of measure is quite simple. The success of this goal would be measured by whether the space is clean by the end of the time period.
- Achievable – Is it realistic to deep-clean and declutter your whole life in the current state of mind you are in? Is there a specific time you can allocate to implement a healthy cleaning regime? Set up an action plan for the next 30-days for which aspects you want to tackle and by when the aspects need to be completed.
- Relevant – Where you are now in life, is it relevant for you to do a deep clean and decluttering? Are you longing to entertain, but feel to self-conscious to invite people over? Are you in a mental stalemate, and need a master refresh? Or would this merely be a time-killer? The last one will probably not be a good motivator for sticking with it.
- Time-bound – Well, you have 30-days, don’t budge on this.
This 30-Day challenge is great for the transitional period between two seasons (in Cape Town we are finally moving into Autumn, so I will be doing this and the following challenge over the next 30 days – eating the elephant as they say).
30-Day Challenge Idea #2 Finish a big project
Now is your time to take charge of that project you have been putting off. Believe it or not, 30 days is more than enough time to finish it. Considering that you would be setting aside a set time in your day toward working on finishing the project/s. The key with this goal is to really push through each and everyday, once you have committed. Thinking back on the furniture goals I have set to complete in last week’s post, the completion of these pieces are going to take a lot of consistency and when considering the first challenge, this may be counter intuitive (but for me, the one needs to see the completion of the other, therefore Challenge 1 and 2 work hand in hand). This can however be applied at work as well, set the goal to finish three projects (if that is within your capabilities). Remember, the goal needs to be achievable. The key here is to pick a project (or two) in either your personal life or professional life you can work towards completing in the 30-day time period.
How will you achieve this goal?
- Specific – Break this goal down into actions. i.e. In my furniture example, by the end of the 30-days, the couch and TV unit must be fully built and all of the furniture built must be varnished and all final touches must be applied, including filling of gaps, sanding and any other trimmings I would like to have applied.
- Measurable – This is done through accounting for the items to be completed and those that have been completed. Keeping an inventory of all actions to be completed for the project(s) will be an immense help.
- Achievable – How much of the work still required is realistically achievable in a matter of 30-days? Are there variables beyond your control that may limit progress? For the big work project, will its completion rely on client review or external inputs with varying commitment levels? All of these things need to be factored in and must inform your ‘Achievability’ rating.
- Relevant – Is the project you want to work on relevant to the daily functioning of your household? Will it benefit you immediately or would you be able to continue without it? Will the project at work lead toward the betterment of the company, or is it a low priority project that is relatively low on the priority rankings of the company?
- Time-bound – 30-days… That’s all you get.
30-Day Challenge idea #3 Live a healthy lifestyle
Thirty days is not necessarily enough time to making major changes to the quality of your health. However, the actively pursuing a healthy lifestyle will lead to an improved quality of life. This can be done through eating a balanced diet, limiting alcohol and caffeine consumption, working in a couple of workout sessions in a week. The purpose of this 30-day challenge is to set the benchmark for a healthy lifestyle to be incorporated for the foreseeable future. Setting a good foundation is key to maintaining the results of this challenge indefinitely.
How do we set the SMART goal for this challenge?
- Specific – For this challenge, ‘Being Healthy’ is not considered being specific enough to make the challenge successful. For this challenge, you will need to consider specific actions (having a ‘why‘ for this challenge will definitely be beneficial). These specific actions will include identifying a specific set of rules according to which you want to eat (i.e. following the Mediterranean diet, excluding certain foods, limiting certain consumables such as coffee and sugar), an exercise regime you want to follow (low impact vs high impact exercises), and negative habits you want eliminate that could be affecting your health.
- Measurable – The measurability of this challenge hinges on a personal measure, do you want to be able to run a 5km without stopping? Have improved vitals across the board, be able to successfully pursue a fertility journey? Loose a couple of kilograms (be specific about how many). The measurability of this challenge will depend on your why.
- Achievable – Will it be possible to reach your desired goals within a month? If you have not run a day in your life, realistically consider whether you would be able to run a half-marathon in a month. Remember that health is a journey, if you are making diet changes to improve fertility, this might not happen in 1 month, but consistently eating clean and doing low impact workouts would potentially be a step in the right direction.
- Relevant – The relevancy of this challenge would depend on your ‘Why’. The relevancy of this challenge will depend on whether it will serve you and where you are going in your life. For example, I would like to start my own fertility journey soon. In doing this, I know that I have to prepare my body for the journey and hopefully soon thereafter, pregnancy. Your ‘Why’ will definitely be the driver behind this Challenge.
- Time-bound – As I mentioned above, the challenge is meant to create the foundations of an improved lifestyle. To set the foundations you have 30-days, but you will need a longevity mindset to drive you past the 30-days (working toward your ‘Why’).
This post was meant give you ideas toward starting 30-day Challenges in your life and was meant to show you how you could potentially work towards formulating your own, whether you want to live a more healthy lifestyle, combat a giant in your life, building your business. If you are feeling up for the challenge, you would be able to do more than one challenge in a 30-day period. It’s all up to you. 30-Day Challenges can help you to pivot your life into thee trajectory of your dreams.
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