What To Do When You Don't Complete A Thirty Day Challenge And My Next Challenge

My thirty day challenge for the month of March is to complete the collection section of my GTD daily review checklist. I've been working on getting my checklist fine tuned and now what I want to start doing is getting each of these sections done on a daily basis. I'm going to start with the collection section of that checklist. Before I get into that though, I want to discuss how my challenge went last month and address some things there that you will probably face as you work to improve your mental strength.

You are going to find that when you try and make progress, you will encounter bumps in the road that prevent you from making progress or delay it for a short period of time. Last month, I was unable to complete my thirty day challenge for the month of February. This comes on the heels of steady progress in the many months prior to that.

I think that it's human nature when you fail to react to that failure with an explanation of why it was that you didn't succeed. I've mentioned in the past here in the stuff I have been teaching, that when you don't succeed in making progress, that you shouldn't explain the reason why.

Instead, what I advocate is that you only talk about what you accomplish - not what you fail to accomplish or why you failed to accomplish it.

Now this doesn't mean that I don't think that you should reflect on the structure of the failure to look for ways to overcome roadblocks. What I'm talking about is those things that take away your momentum that are more along the lines of excuses.

During the month of February, I had several events that derailed my progress, but in the end, those reasons ultimately don't matter. What ultimately matters is what I actually do and I could have if I wished still completed my challenge for the month, but I didn't.

So what I will always encourage you to do, when you stall out, it's time to take a breather because you reached a plateau of sorts and start up again the next month.

When you do that, you want to pick up at the same level you were prior to that month. For example, in my case, I had built up several thirty day challenges. You want to pick up those and just start a new one.

What you will find happen when you do that, is that you will find that these setbacks happen less and less often. Good luck on your challenge this month and I will check in with you again tomorrow.