30 Days to Success - Postmortem
May 20th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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Today is the official wrap-up of the 30 Days to Success Challenge, where the goal was to adopt a positive new daily habit or discontinue a bad habit for 30 days straight.
A big congratulations to everyone who attempted this challenge. If you took it seriously, I’ll bet it proved to be an eye-opening experience for you. I’ve done this challenge many times, and each time I’m left with the thought, “It was hard, but it was worth it.”
I now invite all participants to share your results by posting a new comment, regardless of whether you consider this your greatest triumph or your greatest flop. In the words of the albino from The Princess Bride, “This is for posterity, so please… be honest.”
After completing the challenge, you have several options. Most likely it will be fairly easy to continue your new habit, even if it was difficult to start. I find that the effort required to keep going feels like 5-10% of the effort to build the habit in the first place. So you may decide to continue your new habit as-is, to reassess and refine it, or to drop it. Now is the time to review your results and make this decision consciously. If your new habit serves you well, by all means keep it in some form, but don’t allow yourself to backslide.
Here’s my own postmortem. Like many of you I opted to take on multiple challenges. My three goals were to:
1) Run or bike at least 25 minutes or go for a 60-minute hike in the mountains every day.
2) Get up at 5am every morning, including weekends.
3) Write for at least 4 hours every single day, and don’t check email until I’ve done that.
Habit #1 was surprisingly difficult because of scheduling issues, but I did complete it without missing a day. I had to adapt the outdoor exercise to indoor aerobic exercise on some occasions, such as when my wife went out of town for 5 days and I was home with the baby. I wanted to do my writing (habit 3) first thing in the morning, so I ended up exercising in the evening. But I think this was a mistake — it would have been better to exercise first thing in the morning. I often had Toastmasters meetings in the evenings, or my wife had a meeting, so I had to go running at different times. I wanted to exercise at the same time every day. Also, it’s starting to warm up here in Vegas. It was about 90 degrees at 9pm last night, and some days it’s been very windy (25mph winds), so running in the heat and wind wasn’t much fun, although I still did it. As far as results are concerned, it’s the usual you’d expect from daily aerobic exercise: I feel more energetic and sleep more soundly. My plan going forward is to switch to AM exercise, drop it to 5-6 days per week, and combine the outdoor exercise with indoor exercise and weight training. Today I’m taking a day off from exercise, and this weekend I’ll map out a new routine.
Habit 2 was actually the easiest; I never missed a day. Even though my 30-day challenge ended yesterday, I still automatically got up at 5:00 this morning. I’ve gotten up early many times in the past, but this is the first time I’ve done it for 30 days straight including weekends. In the past I’d usually sleep in til around 7:00 AM on weekends — that’s considered sleeping in when you have a 5-year old who loves to pounce you. The habit of getting up at 5:00AM every day has done wonders for my productivity, and right now I plan to keep going with it indefinitely. I found that the key to this habit was simply to go to bed when I’m sleepy each night instead of at any particular set time. Most of the time I went to bed between 10-11PM.
Habit 3 was the hardest, but I made it. I feel great about how my book is coming along. I was able to finish the research and the outline, and I’ve written drafts of the first two chapters and most of the third. I plan to take this weekend off, and then reassess how to adapt this habit going forward. It was productive to be sure, but seven days a week of writing was draining, and I could definitely have used a day off now and then, especially between chapters. But this habit kicked my writing into high gear, so I do consider it a success. The second part of this habit was not to check email until after I’d completed my four hours of writing. I found that to work very well. It was very productive to start the day by diving straight into my #1 project. By leaving the adminstrative and communication work until the end of the day, I finish that work in far less time because I know as soon as I’m done with it, I’m done with work for the day. This is especially effective when I’m hungry and want to have dinner. But if I do this kind of work at the start of the day, it tends to expand and take on a life of its own. I’m definitely going to keep this habit going in some form.
This weekend I plan to relax, spend time with the family, and celebrate.
May 20th, 2005 at 6:41 am
My goal was to give up the forum I visit for a month. It was actually really easy to do. I realized the reason I spent so much time there was habitual checking.
I haven’t officially made it a 30 day challenge but I’ve been getting up at 6:30 (not a morning person) and doing 2 1/2 hours of work on my own project. I may make it a 30 day challenge because I have already been really impressed with the results. I really like this method towards personal change and I will try and use it whenever I can.
May 20th, 2005 at 7:40 am
My goal was not to have any coffee for 30 days. That proved remarkbly easy, I must say. The quality of coffee at the place I’m working right now was a big incentive, though.
A second challenge that cropped up a few days later was to eat healthier. That, also, was pretty easy (though not as easy as the coffee). Instead of going for cookies and such, I bought carrots and peppers and apples and other things that can be eaten unthinkingly, and it helped a lot. It also brought my weight down from 79kg to 76kg (approx).
Current challenge I’m facing is to do dumbel exercises every day. I may add another one, because I’m quite satisfied by the results.
May 20th, 2005 at 7:40 am
Hello everyone - I had two goals:
- Go to bed before 12am (my average at the time was 1;30am)
- Visit gym 3 times a week (I hadn’t been in a gym for about 2 months at the time)
I would love to say that I’ve completed the challenge flawlessly, but I can’t. Things are a bit more complicated:
1. I consider myself achieving the first goal. I did slip twice and went to bed around 12:10 (just by procrastinating). I also went to bed significantly later than 12am some 3 times but that was actually part of the original fine print: we go to the Opera regularly and the performances rarely end before 11pm.
2. The second challenge results are more controversial: I slipped last week (only 2 times) and this week (none at all, due to sickness on Monday). This is NOT a permanent slip though as I am planning to be back on the schedule.
Conclusions:
1. I will stick to both rules as they proved not only beneficiary but also easily doable.
2. Going to bed after 12am doesn’t make me achieve more during the day.
3. Ability to stick to the plan, not procrastinate and to prioritize properly is vital and I will start working on this.
Once again a HUGE thank you to Steve for his articles, which are both very useful and inspiring. Looking for more challenges in the future.
– Sasha
May 20th, 2005 at 8:08 am
My challenge #1 was to exercise 6 days a week (3 days cardio, 3 days weights), No problem, I just had to stop for around 4 days due the terrible fires that have contamined the city. Now exercise is a habit, I sleep better, have more energy and lost 2 or 3 pounds (of pure fat, I hope).
Challenge #2 was to eat 5 portions of vegetables/fruits a day, sometimes I admit I only got 3 portions or so, so maybe I failed this one…
Now I’ll stick to exercise (and keep increasing my routines) and since last monday I started eating 5 times a day, 4 vegetable portions and 3 fruit portions, etc, it’s beeing a bit hard so far but I’m not gonna fail!
May 20th, 2005 at 8:12 am
My goal was to hit the gym every day for 30 days. I’m trying to put on some weight because I’ve always felt too thin my whole life.
I’ve now gained 6 pounds and have started too see some very noticeable results. That was actually in line with my long term goals.
I’m probably going to knock it down to about 5 days a week which works well with my routine of taking a late lunch at work and spending it at the gym. I think I’m well on my way to having a physique that I’m satisfied with.
Thanks, Steve for the great advice.
May 20th, 2005 at 8:37 am
I started with the challenge to stop eating snacks at work. The first week was hard, but after that, I didn’t really have any real trouble. I did backslide one day when I accepted a free ice cream bar at a special event. That was a head slapper since I didn’t even *think* about my challenge until after I finished.
A few days after the official start of the challenge, I started a second one (so I still have 3 days to go). I decided I would do 15 minutes of exercise each day. To help solidify the commitment, I decided to do it in the morning before going to work since I thought that leaving it until later in the day would make it too easy for me to slip.
That’s worked out really well. I’m following the modified 5BX program from John Walkers book “The Hacker’s Diet” and reached rung #4 last Monday. It may not seem like much, but I can see progress and feel pretty happy that I actually stuck to an exercise program for the first time since I was forced to exercise in high school. I also have been tracking my weight (using his method) but haven’t changed my eating habits. (yet)
One thing I found really helpful was to count down the remaining days instead of counting up from the starting day. Once I started doing that I found it easier to maintain my will.
May 20th, 2005 at 11:52 am
I like your habit 2 very well - I set up my alarm clock for tomorrow…
May 20th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
My challenge was to do 30 minutes exercise daily.
It went well for the first 16 days, but then on day 17 I suffered from back pain which forced me to stop. (I could barely walk, anything remotely passable as ‘exercise’ was right out.) After a few days rest I was able to resume.
It was suggested that exercising daily is over-doing it for someone as unfit/overweight as me, so I decided to experiment with various schedules for three sessions per week. This doesn’t really fit into the “every day for 30 days” concept, so my challenge was over at that point.
I’ve gained insight into the mechanisms by which good habits start to slide when there aren’t clear boundaries. I’ve also gained a new appreciation for how much work is needed for me to regain even just an average level of fitness.
I still think the 30 day challenge idea is a very useful motivational tool and I’ll use it again in future.
May 20th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Hey Steve, is it 30 days already?? I set about on what I thought would be an easy challenge. Post to my blog everyday for 30 days. This simple thing proved to be much harder than I thought. The 3 V’s got me. The first was a computer virus. As one of the network guys for a school district, a computer virus can be a major thing. In our case, the latest “sober” virus hit us. We have Norton Anti-Virus on our 3000+ machines but 4 of them hadn’t updated for some time. These 4 machines sent hundreds of e-mails in mere minutes across our district. It took two days and two evenings to find machines and clean up the mess. The second was the flu virus which took me out of action for 3 days. The 3rd V was vacation on a cruise ship without internet access for a week.
Three unexpected things really messed me up. Here is what I learned.
1. In looking back at goals that I have been successful at, I realize I need a “pass” day at least once a week. This gives you a break and a time to make up for a lost day. In my “Body for life” 90 day exercise/diet plan, having one day a week that was “free” was a lifesaver.
2. Perfectionism is a real problem when it comes to writing. I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was until I tried to write in a short amount of time. Setting aside a realistic time period is a must for me. As I write more it seems to get easier. I could have just thrown up a quick post every day, but I want my posts to be thoughtful and meaningful.
3. Planning is also a must. Had I done a little research on the cruise line I was on, I would have realized that taking along a laptop was a moot point.
In retrospect, a 30 day plan that included blog posts only on weekdays, would have been more workable. Doing extra posts on the weekends would enable me to fill in the blanks of “unexpected” things.
This was very eye-opening. Thanks for the challenge.
John
May 20th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
My goal is (still) to run 30 minutes a day for 30 days in a row. I didn’t make it (yet). I missed many days.
What did I learn?
1) I need to build up more self-discipline. Maybe the 30 Days to Success Challenge isn’t the right tool, if your self-discipline isn’t trained well? (like mine)
2) I usually ran late in the day, a bad idea, because it was too easy to skip a day.
3) This is a personal challenge. *I* am the one who’s responsible for the outcome!
May 20th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
My goal was to run for 30 days in a row.
Health and fitness are not the same. Health is a requirement for fitness. Health is more important, I learned.
I got sick mid way through; the hardest part was to stop running. (I’m already a runner and I enjoyed the challange of sneaking in a 3 or more mile run during the morning, noon, or night)
I gained some wisdom from this experience: I will pay attention to my body. Due to physical stress (no recovery days) and perhaps some life-changing decisions (quit my job-got a new one.. yeah!), my immune system dropped and I became very very ill. (had several afflications at once..)
I’m still coughing up stuff (didn’t get bronchitus, thank god) , but I resumed running , careful, good, workouts. Proper recovery is part of my M.O. now.
Oh, and yeah, My pants are looser and my avg weight is down 5 pounds (no matter what I eat…)
May 20th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
My goal is to get up before 6:30 in the morning,but I failed.
I will do a new 30-day multiple trial from tomorrow:
1)still get up before 6:30
2)don’t have lunch
3)study maths from 17:00 to 22:00(at least 4 hours)
May 20th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
@ x5 - Don’t have lunch? That seems like an odd personal habit to start. If you want to lose weight, I would suggest maybe reducing your intake in each meal. Cutting out meals makes you far hungrier than if you just eat a bit less from each. Sorry, I just can’t comprehend spending that long between breakfast and dinner without eating. I’m pretty sure I’d gorge myself at supper…
May 20th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
I had a running goal like a lot of other people and I ran 27 days out of the 30. And, like others here also, I’m going to keep this running as a habit, but not necessarily 7 days a week. One thing I found was that after I missed a day, I’d get a much better running time the next morning. So I know there’s a benefit to having an off-day. So I’m going to push for 6 days a week, but allow myself to slip to as low as 3 days a week, but only if really necessary.
I also had a 30-day goal to work on implementing something I learned from “Getting Things Done” each and every day, but I think my definition of “implement GTD” was so broad that I don’t know if I missed any days or not. But I probably missed a couple.
As far as what I accomplished - I got my voicemail, email, and snail mail inboxes totally organized and processed. And I’m able to keep everything processed. I’m going to keep at it this habit also because I still have a lot of stuff left to organize, process, and purge. But rather than trying to do something, anything, each day that would fall under “GTD”, I’m going to commit to one mini-project a week. Because I think I wasted a lot of time on unnecessary “system tweaking” in one area when I could have done something more productive in another area. So each week I’m going to focus on one area that needs organizing (storage area, car, Contacts lists, books library). And when that week is over, I’ll have to force myself to focus on something else. Because these past 30 days I’ve learned that no matter how much I think I’ve accomplished in a certain area, it will never be 100% “done”. Where if allowed to, I’d probably always find some new way to organize and improve some particular area forever.
May 20th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
I had two goals.
My first goal was to exercise at least 15 minutes a day. This I did with no problem. Most days I did more than 15, but I found on the days I had lots to do and was really busy I stopped myself at 15 minutes.
My second goal was to eat vegetarian lunches. This one failed miserably and for two reasons. The first is that I was not completely committed to this goal. The second was because I didn’t prepare myself. I did ok for almost a week or two but then when my schedule got off one day and I was running late I stopped by a fast food resturant and it was downhill from there.
May 20th, 2005 at 10:09 pm
I had 3 goals: 1) go to bed by midnight 2) get up by 9 am 3) do my yoga exercises every fday or the 30 days of the challenge.
I only completely achieved one goal - I didn’t miss a day of yoga.
As for the first and second goals, I got pretty close to 100% result, but I still missed a couple of days when I went to bed too late and got up too late (by an hour at the worst).
When it was about day 15 I felt I should make my second goal even stricter and all the subsequent days I got up by 7 am.
All in all, I think the challenge has done me a lot of good. I am going to keep early waking hours and doing yoga for as long as I can.
May 21st, 2005 at 1:47 am
My goal was to stay away from online forums. I did, it wasn’t very hard. I saved about 60 minutes every day.
I also set three more ambitious goals but didn’t post them online. Here goes:
Second goal was to exercise a little every day. I did and it was good, so I will continue to exercise daily from now on (same with the forums - I realized did’t really need them).
Third goal was to wake up early every day. Early for me, that is, I won’t tell you the exact hour because you’d laugh
but it was a big challenge for me and I did get up on time every day. After two weeks I would wake up exactly one minute before the alarm - I found that quite amazing… this new habit I’m definitely not going to throw away.
And my fourth goal was again taken from Steve’s suggestions - ask a girl out every day… this one was the hardest and took a lot of courage every time. I didn’t finish. After a week I met the girl of my dreams (no kidding), so there’s no point really.
Thank you very much Steve.
May 21st, 2005 at 11:26 am
I jumped into this challenge a lot later, so I’m only at day five now. I’m trying to get up before 8:00. At the moment that is early enough for me. I can hear a church bell every hour so a few times I got up when I heard the first boing. Just in time as far as I am concerned.
I made a little spreadsheet with 30 numbered boxes and some room to write my challenge. This is in my ‘tickler file’ folder for today. I cross the next number when I attain my goal for today and then put that piece of paper in the file for tomorrow.
I made a few of these papers and put them seven days apart in the tickler file. This means that every week I will be presented the opportunity to start a new daily habit. Let’s see how that works out.
I also made a list of daily habits that I may want to start. When I am ready for a new challenge I would look there.
On that list I also state which daily habits I already have or that I am currently working on. If I check that every week or so it would function as a safety net to ensure that a daily habit stays a daily habit.
I hope these tips serve others as well. Thanks for the article, Steve!
May 21st, 2005 at 11:26 am
Hello Steve,
Yeah, thanks for the invitation! I had two missions.
1. I tried to be vegetarian for 30 days that I completed. In the future I try to eat less meat than before the mission.
2. I also tried not to eat after 8pm every day. I failed 3 times. Even though I failed I try to make it a habit for the future.
Thanks again and congratulations for your book!
Mate
May 21st, 2005 at 7:11 pm
my goal is to “study GO atleast one hour each day for the next 30 days”, this was a little difficult than what I thought, it was easy at the beginning, I ended up study at minimum of 3 hours each day for about a week, I keep study materials with me, I read them whenever I had spare time. eventually on day 13th I miss that day for an odd reason, I feel too tried from watching movie series entire day, after that I decided to continue but with a lesser version instead. at first the study plan was not included playing the game, only pure study that counts, but I swich to any things that would help me better at Go, so I start accepting online match, went to Go clubs, this help me to have more fun than ealier pure study, in about a week, I was able to raise my rank from 15kyu to 10kyu, after that it was quite easy to maintain.
conclusion, this was quite an interesting experience, I know I imporeved a lot from this habits, and I decide to keep this habit for the next 30 days, now my rank is about 8kyu, I would like to see my self end up as 1 dan Go player before the end of this year. Cheer!
May 22nd, 2005 at 4:39 am
Like others, I had multiple goals set. I’ll review them per group.
I always got up at around 8:30 - 8:45 and I was always rushing to work, so I set these goals:
1) On weekdays, in bed at 12:00, get up at 7:15, max 1 hour later in weekends.
2) Get out of bed when I wake up
My results were adequate, but certainly not perfect. I do in fact get up earlier than before - around 7:45 - and I now don’t have to rush to work anymore, I still don’t have time to eat breakfast before I go. Goal 2 was a rather complete failure. I forgot about it and because I didn’t review my goals, I didn’t adhere to it.
My second set of goals were related to my physical condition.
3) When I get out of bed, I do a set of exercises with weights, push-ups, stretching, etc.
4) 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.
These two challenges went very well. I really like the wu shu school I enlisted at and from the second week on I have been exercising there for 5 days a week, 3 days Liu He Men, an intense external style, 1 day Pa Kua Chuan, a more “internal” style and 1 day Qi Gong. I also practice at home, though not at regular times, so I sometimes miss a day or two. But in all I now spend about 7 to 8 hours a week exercising, compared to 0 hours for the last couple of years, and I like what I’m feeling and seeing.
I set one last, food-related goal.
5) No cheese for 30 days
I set this goal as I noticed that I was eating a _lot_ of cheese. I didn’t eat any cheese for the first two weeks and after that I slipped a little, but I am satisfied that I went from 2-3 portions a day to 2-3 portions a week.
I set the goal because I’m investigating changes to my diet, but I don’t want to get obsessed by what I’m eating. I’ve read quite a bit about all kinds of diets and they all have sensible arguments for and against, so I think I’ll just experiment for myself.
Moving on, I’ve set goals for the next 30 days:
1) Wake up at 7:00 AM and get up as I wake up. Sleep when I feel tired, around 23:30
2) Do my exercises consistently when I wake up
3) Have healthy breakfast each day after exercises
4) Spend 3 hours a day working on my own business
5) After working on my own business, write a quick review on my blog about the progress I made that day for 15 minutes
6) Review these goals each day
Besides that I of couse plan to keep my current schedule at the wu shu school, but that won’t be a problem.
Thanks for the challenge, Steve! It works!
May 22nd, 2005 at 10:51 am
My goals failed because of my flue, at least the one considering exercise, the one considering studing failed because of me.
Now I’m setting new goals, starting today:
get up at 6 , and exercise, every weekday,
and making a plan every day, about what i will do tomorrow
Now I’ll see how it will work this time.
May 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 pm
My challenge was to meditate for 10 minuts every day, and I feel very impressed with myself for sticking to it for all thirty days, even on days when I was both fluish and busy. Since the challenge ended, I have not meditated that much, so starting to day, I will start another thirty day challenge with the same intention.
My next challenge will be to write in my blog every day, and I will start it as soon as I get my home internet connection (should be sometime this week, my hosting company was out of modems when I signed up )
May 23rd, 2005 at 1:00 pm
[…]
The Next 30 Days
May 23, 2005 in the late evening
So… following on from 30 Days to Success - Postmortem. Seeing as he enjoyed it, i came out ra […]
May 27th, 2005 at 4:50 am
If you remember, I wanted to adopt a positive new daily habit
of doing nothing each day.
Well, it was hard, but it was worth it.
I became a bit bored at about 15th day of my challenge, so I decided
to make a trip to Egypt.
Well, it was great and exciting. It was a bit extreme too, because
I’ve been travelling the whole foreign country by myself, all alone.
I’ve been in Cairo for 3 days, walking all days and all nights long,
and that was great. There are a lot of friendly people there.
I’ve been in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba, St. Katharine
Monastery, and Ras-Mohammed national park.
I brought about 700+ pictures from this trip.
Even if it was difficult to start up, I’ll try to continue my new
habit. My new habit serves me well.
Thanks, Steve, for organizing this challenge, and supporting the
whole idea.