Monday, January 30, 2012

I Completed My Thirty Day Challenge, Now What?

It's the last day of January and it marks the completion of my thirty day challenge which was to walk three miles each day. I've been doing these for nearly a year now and so I know what the next step is. But if you just completed your first thirty day challenge, you might be asking yourself, what do I do now?

The idea behind the thirty day challenge is to teach you how to change your habits. But if you only do it for thirty days, have you really changed anything if you don't continue doing it after thirty days?

The trick here is that when you initially tell yourself mentally that you only have to change for thirty days it's a little easier than telling yourself it's a permanent change. It's mentally tougher to tell yourself to change for a lifetime. But once, you make it through a whole month, that is exactly what you want to do - continue your thirty day challenge after the initial thirty days.

The key to doing this is to immediately change your focus to the next challenge and to build on your success.

I call this setting the bar. Let's review some of my past challenges.


  • I gave up diet coke

  • I gave up fried food

  • I started walking every day

  • I gave up snacks wrapped in plastic

  • I walked for three miles every day

  • <----- The Bar of Mental Strength ----->

  • My next thirty day challenge


So you can see above where my bar of mental strength is. The goal is to continue lifting the mental weight I have been lifting and to progressively add a little bit more each and every month.

This is how you create change. Do a challenge. Complete it. Continue it. Add another challenge. Repeat.

I've actually forgotten some of my challenges that I know I am still doing. But those above are the biggies I remember.

So now that you have completed your thirty day challenge. Start your next one and continue the last one. Build on that success. You can join our discussion in the forums as we track our challenges if you are a member. If not, you can join now.

 

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Michael Kuhn

Black Belt Project: Build Mental Strength


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