Join the Challenge – Update
April 19th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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A few pieces of advice for those courageous souls who are taking the 30-day challenge:
1) Focus on actions, not results. It’s easier to guarantee that you exercise every day vs. trying to lose a certain amount of weight. It’s easier to guarantee that you write for an hour vs. finishing a page of text. Of course you want to select actions that you feel will give you positive results, but the main point of this challenge is to condition a new habit or to decondition a bad habit. In the long run, it’s the habit that will produce results.
2) Make it specific and measurable. Be specific in how you describe your new daily action such that an independent observer who watched you could say with complete certainty whether or not you succeeded. If your new habit is to “eat more fruits and vegetables,” that’s too vague. “Eat at least 5 six-ounce servings of fruit or vegetables each day” is better. It’s easier to succeed when you have a specific target; you’re more likely to fall off course when the target is too general. You need to know with total certainty whether you hit your target each day — don’t allow any room for rationalizations. Make it binary. Either you hit the bullseye or you didn’t.
3) Don’t give up. If you miss your target one day, start over at day 1 with the goal of making it further on your second attempt.
4) Expect to succeed. Intend and expect that you’ll make it through the whole 30 days and will share your success story on May 20. In fact, go ahead and intend for everyone doing this to succeed. Sometimes people get better results with a group than they do with individual efforts.
April 20th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
OK, I’m in. Here’s the deal
-> No Cheese
-> No Mayo
No Fastfood i.e. Wendy’s McD, KFC, Burger King, (Deli’s are OK as long 1 and 2 are upheld)
-> No Pizza from Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and other chains.
-> No candy, chocolate, cookies, chips, etc.
1 and 2 are simple, 3 is simple if I plan a bit ahead and keep food in the fridge at all times. 4 is a tough one for at nerd like me, 5 will hopefully keep me from those vending machines and if I keep fruit at hand I’ll do fine.
WILLPOWAR!!!11 one one eleven.
April 21st, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Judging by the names, women are not well represented in this 30-day challenge, so here I am! I will walk my dog every day for at least 20 minutes. I know that sounds a bit wussy, but it usually works out to more time than that and allows me to go uphill when I feel energetic. It also means that much time listening to my podcasts, which are mostly what I call personal growth items, e.g., related to tech or information design.
April 23rd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
OK, I’m going for it. A bit late, but I’ll make up for it by making my commitment a multidisciplinary one, if you will.
I always arrive late at work because I go to sleep too late and when I wake up at 8:30 I don’t get out for another 20-30 minutes. So, new rules:
- On weekdays, in bed at 12:00, get up at 7:15, max 1 hour later in weekends.
- Get out of bed when I wake up
My physical condition isn’t horrible, but it is lousy. I’ve got good metabolism, so I don’t have weight problems, but my condition/stamina is hovering just north of zero. I feel tired 60% of the day and am exhausted after any non-trivial physical activity. So, changes:
- When I get out of bed (early,) I do a set of exercises with weights, push-ups, stretching, etc.
- I’ve already enlisted at a traditional wu shu school, and am going to do 2 lessons a week and practice at home every day for 30 mins minimum.
Finally, food. My lunches are always bread with cheese and / or meat (or sweet stuff, but I hardly ever eat that). I’m not giving up meat (yet), but I’ll start with:
- No cheese for 30 days
As a sidenote, what are sensible yet tasty ideas for lunches? I sometimes eat yoghurt with cruesli, apple, etc. but eating that everyday for lunch will get tiresome too (and is perhaps not very good for you, either?) Living in the Netherlands, I am so habituated to eating bread each day that I wouldn’t know what else to eat.
OK, I’m going on way too many tangents here so I’ll keep it at this.
April 23rd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Can we bother you to write a midpoint-blog to motivate those who might be losing sight of the 30-days mark to keep going? =)
April 24th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
I’m in, too. I used to set these kinds of goals all of the time when I was an undergrad in college. I since gained weight and developed some bad habits and I would like to get back to how I was.
I’ve listed my goals on the blog (basically, minimize eating bad food, exercise more, improve my 1 mile running time, and maintain the blog.)
One problem that I have always had is that I am too smart for whatever scoring system I come up with. I always figure out the loopholes in whatever metrics I decide on so that I can achieve the goal in a literal sense but not in spirit. Thus, I am a little hesitant to define my goal too concretely. Rather, I try to have a critical look at my actions to determine if I am meeting my goal.
April 24th, 2005 at 10:13 pm
Steve, I prefer to not join your challenge. This is because I often challenge myself. Instead of using 1 month, however, I prefer to use 1 week periods.
These 1-week long challenges have helped me a lot.
However, I admire what you are doing. Keep up the good work!
April 25th, 2005 at 2:05 am
A short update on my 30-days-no-coffee challenge:
One week has passed, and the main thing I’ve noticed is that I sleep like a log. Once in bed, it takes about 10 seconds (according to a usually trustworthy source) and I’m off, until 6am or so. I used to wake up every two hours.
On the downside, I get tired much earlier these days. I’m hoping that’s a temporary thing.
Anyone else have an update?
April 27th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
Starting Today … 30 days .. aerobic excercise (running is my choice..), stretching, meditation/prayer, and daily replection & planning.
Done….
Now onto day 2… I hope its like day 1….