Forget the New Year’s Resolutions, Instead Try a 30 Day Challenge

This is my 5th of my first official 30 day challenge put together by @dragosroua and today I'm going to talk about 30 day challenges.

Doing something for 30 days is a time limited achievable goal.

We have probably all read or heard someone say, "Goals must be measurable and specific. They must also be achievable." It's true, if a goal is not specific, we are just hoping something happens instead of being proactive in order to make it happen. If a goal isn't achievable or your brain is thinking subconsciously that it can't be done, it won't get done. We are creatures of belief. We do what we believe is possible and we don't do what we believe is impossible.

30 Days is Hard but Not Too Hard

In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (mi-ha-yee cheeks-sent-me-high) book called Flow, he talks about the psychology of optimal experience. It is the state where a person is so immersed in the activity they are doing, that they completely forget about the world around them. They look up after hours, wondering where time went. In times of Flow people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. It's a real rush to experience and I'm doing my best to achieve it more. You can read a summary of the concepts in the book here.

According to MC, Flow is triggered when the challenge set before you isn't so hard you'll get frustrated, but where your skill level is still developing so you don't get bored. 30 day challenges are perfect for this.

30 day challenges actually reprogram your brain to be more efficient.

Dr. Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist explains that thoughts are real things. Synapses fire and they occupy real estate in our brain. Every thought or set of thoughts is a platform for action that we have built inside our head. All that we say and do starts with a thought. What we dwell on, or immerse ourselves in on a daily basis, really does change the course of our lives.

Charles Duhigg, in his book 'The Power of Habit' writes how our brains are always trying to create shortcuts. You can think of them like an actual shortcut on your computer. When you want to run a program on your laptop, you find the icon for your program and start it. Behind the scenes it is running a ton of commands. Back in the day on my old TRS-80, I wrote my own programs from scratch; Command after tedious command. Once done I could save it and execute it to my heart's content.

Habits are muscle memory actions. They are shortcuts our brains have programmed so the brain can save energy. Think about the last time you drove to work, or anywhere you drive often. Where you checking your GPS or road signs along the way. Where you cognisant of how much pressure you had to put on the gas or the break? Did you have to tell yourself to check the side mirror before you changed lanes? No, you were probably listening to some tunes or an audiobook. Perhaps you were thinking about the upcoming day. Unless the traffic was out of the ordinary, you probably didn't even really notice it all that much, save for the jerk cutting in and out of the lanes, putting everyone's lives at risk (yeah, you know who you are). Anything your brain can put on autopilot, it will. It's doing this so it can be used to think about and process other things it has not been able to apply autopilot to.

There are some different theories on how many days exactly it does take to get rid of or establish a habit. Most people agree that to capture something in your long term memory, it takes about 21 days. Then it takes another 20-40 days to really get it programmed in for keeps. At first you have to think about and apply the new thing on a regular basis, but before to long, your brain starts its autopilot protocol. Doing something for 30 days allows that new thing, that at one time seemed so daunting, to become comfortable. Then we are ready for the next step.

After 30 days you will know if it's something you want to continue.

My dad use to say, "If you do something, keep at it for a while. When you have given it a fair shot and you're sure you don't enjoy it, you will know that it's time to move on." Now he didn't read the books I have. To that wise man, these concepts were just intuitive. If you give yourself 30 days to try something, do it well. You will know on that last day if you want to continue the practice or if you're ready to lay it down and try something else. And guess what; You don't have to feel any guilt about it. You gave it an honest try.

You will have accomplished 12 new things by the end of 2018.

Now depending on when you start this, you might have less than 12 new things you have tried by the end of the year. Just so you know today is the 5th of January. 30x12 is 360. If you start your own 30 day challenge today or tomorrow you can still do 12 this year.

My Previous 30ish Day Challenges

I wasn't doing exactly 30 day intervals with the following example, but the same principles applied. (This year I'm going to be a bit more systematic about it.)

I am a computer programmer by trade. I sit at my keyboard ALL DAY LONG and my fingers are the main muscle group I exercise on a consistent basis. Before the end of August I was feeling tired and irritable a lot of the time. I had no energy to get my fat butt out of my Lazyboy for almost anything. I didn't even have the energy to spend some quality alone time with my wonderful loving wife. It was getting very bad and I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired all the time. I decided I was going to do one thing to at least start the process of change. I was going to record the calories I was consuming everyday for a period of time. I did that one thing. Then later I did something else; I looked up how many calories I'd have to limit myself to in order to lose a ½ a pound per week. It wasn't hard because I'm already geeky about stats and cause and effect systems. This led to the next thing. I started wearing my old Fitbit tracker so I could see how many calories I was burning per day. After I did a little math I decided I would try to get 10K steps per day. That allowed me to eat about ⅓ more calories than I had been, and I really enjoy good food.

The net result of starting that one thing that led to others has been profound. I have lost more than ½ pound per week. Since September 24th I've lost a total of 24.4 lbs. That's 1.62 lbs per week on average. Now I have not been counting my calories since Thanksgiving but guess what; I'm still losing the pounds. (@calatorulmiop, I think you're correct about calorie counting not being sustainable over a long period of time, but it did help me get going in the right direction.) I don't have the crazy urge to go back for 2nds and sometimes 3rds. I have a plate of food per meal and I'm full. Sometimes I don't even eat every meal because I'm just not hungry enough. It started with one small achievable commitment.

It's only 30 days, so why not give it a try?

Just start challenging yourself with one new thing for 30 days. Who knows what it could lead to. I want to leave you with a Ted Talk by Matt Cutts. In it he talks about his year of 30 Day Challenges. It's quite motivating. I'd love to hear what you might be doing in the future. Tag me if you start a new challenge in 2018. Who knows, maybe I'll even join you.

Future #challenge30days Potential Post

• The Phoenix Protocol - I might do some more brainstorming on this.
• Tribute to my Uncle Raymond (98 years old and we just went to his funeral Jan 2nd)
• The addictive dice game my wife and I play at the kitchen table now that our kids are growing up and doing their own things.
• SFEOS - Developing a Crowd Founding Platform and Network of Gamers from the Ground Up.
• EOS Development (Learning on the Test Network - both local and public test net)
• Codemash 2018 (A yearly developer conference I attend in Sandusky Ohio) - Probably multiple posts on this. My family has been attending with me the last few years. They have fun doing the water park while I geek out with my peeps.
• My life as a traveling gospel teacher.
• My Personal Fight for Economic Freedom for Everyone through Crypto
• My struggles to stick with things over the years on a consistent basis… This one is going to hurt a bit and not sure how much I'll share.
• Adventures in Sailing (well learning to sail)
• Adventures in Weight Loss (More details on how the winter season is affecting my weight loss)
• Anything else I can think up...