30-Day Challenge: Learning how to set up 100% successful 30-Day Challenges

[Dot]

Over the next 30 days I'm going to explore and focus on how to understand and set up a framework for making 30-day challenges that create an environment for 100% success. I will be 100% successful in this challenge.

[Dot]

There's going to be a lot of engineering, exploring, dissecting, moving parts around, questioning, trying different things - so that I can create a system (that includes an engine, navigation, and fuel) that will take me to my destination target goal with no less than a 100% success rate. And not maybe reach, not want to reach. Will reach.

I've chosen to use the idea of a system of vehicular transportation - such as a car, bus, motorcycle, etc - because we all use them effectively to move us from one point to another in our lives. While this might look complicated at first, I'm going to wind up with something so simple that setting up a challenge for 100% success will be as easy as driving to the store for a loaf of bread.


Along the way, some of the components that need to be unpacked and critically examined are going to be:

Words
Language
Thoughts
Symbols
Maps
Power
Awareness
Attention
Dynamics
Change
Movement
Momentum
Pressure
Direction
Relationships
Desires
Priorities
Failure
Success
Goals
Targets
Focus
Energy
Vibrations
Consciousness
Framing
Structure
Communication
Efficiency
Time
Space
Will
Environment
Conditions
States
Reality
Creating
Examination
Weight
Emotions
Feelings
Fear
Love
Resistance
Potentials
Doubt


All this needs to be examined - to the point, at least, that there is an understanding of these parts, how they interact, and why they are important. Now, since I'm the one creating these parts - they can be whatever I want them to be - as long as the complete system (that includes an engine, navigation, and fuel) will take me to my destination target goal with no less than a 100% success rate. And since, at this point, all the parts are being created before the system is put together, the order in which parts are created is not so important. And, often, when we take something apart - the sequence of removing and examining the parts happens in a natural order that becomes apparent after we begin the process.

[Dot]

OK, we've all taken things apart, straightened out closets, cleaned up our desktops. So, something that would top the list is to create a time and a place for the process. After we begin the process, we need to create places for what we want to examine.

So, I'm going to pull down from the component list a few things that are closely inter-related, and examine them:

Time
Space
Order
Chaos


Time: We need to unpack time just a bit. Play with it. Roll it around in our mouths. We need to examine our relationship with time. How we think about it. How time makes us feel. How we define time. Because, we all here too often about there "not being enough time." or "I'll find the time." This is baloney. If we are always trying to find the time, where did it go? Is it hiding? Does it not want you to find it?

Time is often defined by the new physics as the 4th dimension. If you have a box, it will have three dimensions that we all easily understand as height, width, and depth. When the box begins moving in space, that is defined as the next dimension - which is time.

But the "time" we're taking about that we need to straighten out our closets or remove and examine parts is not time at all. It is space.

Space: OK, now we're back to the box that has three dimensions. We call also call this a "place." We want to begin removing and examining all these parts. At this point we begin. As we're pulling out parts, we need to create some space/places for them. This can be as simple as making a few different piles, areas, places for the various parts that are related. A fairly common - and effective - way of beginning to straighten out a closet - is to completley empty the closet. Ah, new space! But now we have all this chaos on the floor in the room - and it's taking up space where it shouldn't be. So, we make some piles, usually three or four: keep pile, trash pile, giveaway pile, and sometimes a not-sure pile. In doing this simple act we have created several new spaces - often within a matter of minutes. And what appeared to us as chaos is now moving towards some kind of order.

We can even simplify time and space to a more accurate description - used by the new physics - space/time.

Order: What is order? On a pretty simple scale, it's just a matter of things being where (space) they are most efficient for their purpose, and occurring in the proper sequence (time).

Chaos: For our purposes, we'll define chaos as any condition that is not working for us in the way we want. Could be a messy closet, a job we don't like, our tired bodies, our unexamined thoughts and feelings. And chaos is not even a bad condition. Often it can be very positive, because it means that the order that was created at some point is no longer working, and that a newer more current order is needed as a framework. We see this process with the formation of nations, people, businesses, relationships...

How this relates to the 30-day challenge. Anytime we find we want or need to make a change, it's because something that might have been serving us is no longer doing so. Either it changed, or we changed, or - more often - both. At this point, all we know and experience is that this is not want we want - it's not working for us. We're not into it. It becomes a drag. Seems to take our energy. Doesn't make us feel good. Doesn't add to our lives. Causes pain. And it's often at that very point that the seed of a new order begins to appear in our minds. Some else we want to do, or be, or experience. We have grown. We have moved. And now our relationship to the old order has changed. It no longer serves us.

That shirt we thought was cool and fit us just right 10 years ago - ain't cuttin' it today.
That stack of five-year-old computer magazines in the back of the closet contain information that is no longer relevant.
The old David Hasselhoff posters on the wall just aren't reflecting our current sense of taste and style.

[Daffy Duck]

Cool idea! Sounds very interesting.

To me, the absolute key things are:

1. Knowing what you really want.
2. Developing an action plan to achieve what you want.
3. Actually thinking, doing, and being the things that create what you want.

Step #3 is usually the hardest part for me and it requires the most self-discipline. Step #1 is also a challenge to people who have never really taken the time to ask themselves, "What am I here for?"

[Angela]

Ah. Looks like you were talking about something other than what I was talking about the other day, sorry!

You asked about 30-day challenges, and it looks like you're focusing on the "challenge" -- where I was talking about what Steve Pavlina advocated early on: 30 day TRIAL. Big difference. (Daffy, I forbid you to use the "S" word!)

A 30 day trial is successful pretty much no matter what -- because you're just trying something for 30 days, see if it suits you, works well, shifts your perspective, sets in as a habit. A challenge, of course, is something you either achieve or you don't.

Sorry about misinterpreting you!

[CarolM]

I'm on board of course.

I'll save all my questions for later. I'm off to teach.

LOL @ David H. Posters. You're funny.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by Angela

You asked about 30-day challenges, and it looks like you're focusing on the "challenge" -- where I was talking about what Steve Pavlina advocated early on: 30 day TRIAL. Big difference. (Daffy, I forbid you to use the "S" word!)

Oh no no, I agree, there is a big distinction between a trial and a challenge.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Oh no no, I agree, there is a big distinction between a trial and a challenge.

Yes -- I had thought (s)he was talking about Steve's original idea of trials. I'll bet a lot of people around here are sort of collapsing the two ideas together, so it might be helpful to be explicit about that.

Even though the semantics police might come after you.

[Dot]

This morning I thought I'd grab and examine a few parts that are concerned with the symbolism we use to structure our world.

Words - We all too easily can get trapped into thinking and believing that words are the objects and attributes themselves. This is not true. The word "apple" is not an apple. The word "apple" is a symbol, or representation of an object. Furthermore, our condition of overlaying of word-symbols onto the objects and attributes themselves can be a hinderance for a much deeper and more direct experience.

Words can empower us - by what they represent. We take them in, internalize them, which produces a subjective state. Words can harm us when they discourage us - by what they represent. And what they represent is ultimately inside us. And if they are inside us - we can change - if needed - what they represent to better serve us.

Language - Concerning various languages, it's important for us to awaken and at least realize that languages are tools for the communication of ideas/thoughts. Different languages produce - and are the product of - different people, different cultures, different textures of thought. People who speak and think in German do not think the same way as people who speak and think in English, or Chinese, or Spanish... Nor do all German people think alike. In fact, no two people in the world think exactly alike. Even we ourselves, as individuals, do not think the exact same way from day to day, moment to moment.

Symbols - We can boil down all words, and languages - ways to express ideas, attributes or states - into symbols. And symbols are not the real thing in themselves. Symbols are a representation. Symbols are a form of communication, and the level of its meaning - which produces in us an internal state - changes as we change. One hundred different people can look at a cross - in a singular moment in time - from a hundred different levels and generate one hundred different internal states. Some happy, some sad, some disgusted - and anything else along a continuum of experience. And in another moment, those same one hundred people look again. And they have changed, the cross has changed, and their experience and internal state has changed.

Think about this. Really let it roll around in your brain.

Maps - Polish-American scientist and philosopher, Alfred Korzybski, gave us a very real truth when he penned, "The map is not the territory."

We all use "maps" everyday at ever moment. We use maps to - hopefully - give us some overview about where we are and where we want to go. Often, when we encounter and begin to use a new map, it can be exciting for us. But the problem occurs when we begin to mistake the map for the truth. X marks the spot on a map that may tell us where gold is buried. And in our initial excitement, we run out and begin telling others about the map. We have the need to tell others in order convince ourselves that the map is real. This can often be seen in people who have discovered a religion or philosophical system or political doctrine. How often to we see Christians pushing the Bible as the truth. The Bible is a map. Even if 100% truth is contained within it, and the gold is exactly where the X on the Bible map is indicated, the Bible is still a map, it is not the gold itself. Even if all the gold in the world were mapped out in a book, the gold itself still has to be actually retrieved, processed, internalized, and then put into circulation - and truly shared with others to be of use in the way it was intended by its mapmakers.

A map from New York to Los Angeles - no matter how concise and accurate - is not an actual experience of making a trip. An even if we follow the map the exact same way on several trips, every trip will be different.

Words are maps, languages are maps, thoughts are maps. Let's not confuse the maps for truth. Rather let us use them to explore and move through our lives - and feel free to use them when they serve us, and fold them up and put them away when they are not.

How these parts relate to the 30-day challenge engine - It is vitally important that we truly realize that things are not as they appear. Let's not confuse words-language-symbols-maps for the real thing; for the actual experience and edification of the journey. Let's not confuse X with the actual gold itself. Let us be always aware that words-language-symbols-maps are tools.

A recipe for a birthday cake is not a birthday cake. We can have cake and eat it, too - when we actually learn how to make our own cakes. And we can share our cake, and others can share their cake with us. Sharing recipes can be a beautiful idea, as it is the recipe author's intent to transfer a direct experience. But actually being in the position to truly share the cake itself brings us, and all those around us, a deeper and more direct level of experience.