30 Day Challenge: Passing the Point of Quitting

30 Day Challenge: Passing the Point of Quitting

September 20, 2011, 10:50 am
Filed under: Life Choices

“There is a point at which one tires of every challenge.” This is a quote that I just made up but sounds so profoundly cynical that I am sure I got it from Truman Capote or W.C. Fields. Whatever the source, I always hit it and at rather predictable times.

The thing about seriously challenging the way one manages his or her time – and that’s really all a 30 Day Challenge does – is that he or she cannot simply add on new and better stuff. He or she must also drop some old, tired, but often comfortable stuff. Wasting time on Facebook has to go if one wants to workout five times a week. Mindlessly watching a movie for the fourth time (or reading a juicy novel) has to go to give time for non-fiction reading (the kind that improves one’s life). What gives way to five-meals-a-day to boost metabolism? Big, heavy, time-consuming gorging and the ensuing trip to the couch.

What I found in the past, however, is that doing something like a 30 Day Challenge is always worth the sacrifice. Things come to light that are not otherwise discovered. For instance, a discovery that fictions are easily forgotten and not often worth my time (exceptions for Power of One, The Shack and a few others) came from a purposeful choice to read one non-fiction book each month – a habit now in its third decade (that’s a lot of learning). Twenty years ago, I accepted a professor’s challenge to hit the gym three times a week and watched my sleep habits, grades, and moods improve. All I lost was twenty pounds and time spent fuddling around wondering why I lacked energy.

Now 2/3 through my current round of challenges, I am finding new truths and anchoring old ones. Here’s my list and a few lessons.

• Walk dog 6x/week. Impossible. Janet likes doing this and often includes it as part of her workout routine. She really only needs me to fill in when she can’t do the job. So it’s a honey-do though I haven’t counted it as such as yet. I should just drop it.
• Limit TV to 14 hrs/week (incl. football). This is easy. There’s nothing much worth watching besides football anyway, and most of those games were on as background to half-doing something else. Turning the TV off is easy (there’s even a special for button for it).
• Check email only 3x/day. Bad idea. I know what the time-management and leadership gurus say. In my case, they’re full of prunes. It turns out that many of the people that depend on my advice email me in urgent need. I could ask them to text or call, but that would not be caring for the needs of others would it? Since caring for the needs of others is one of my non-negotiable core values, this one is gone.
• 5 healthy dinners/week. Eating healthy at night is easy when you have a soul-mate-sweetie-pie-high-school-sweetheart for a wife. Janet wants me to live and be healthy, so this one was nothing more than, “Hey baby, can you help me eat more healthy foods at night?” Done deal.
• Water, water, water… gallon/day. Pain. In. The. Bladder. Still, I feel better when hydrated, so this is just not an option.
• 5 workouts/week. First discovery is that, yes, I can find the time and no, it’s not easy. I’m doing six, actually, but over time, that may drop back to five. I also found that I can workout a lot harder than I originally thought. I had to get out of the gym to learn the latter truth, but there’s not time here to go into all that.
• 5 small meals/day, 5 days/week. It’s just discipline, but it does create a constant flow of energy throughout the day. The 3:00pm “I need a nap” cycle broke the third day after I started eating smaller, more frequent meals. I’m not a farmer, why eat like one?
• Read 1 book on relationship  development, 1 on leadership. Again, this seems pretty simple. I was already reading one book per month, so cutting the mindless meandering and inserting something helpful and useful is just a decision.
• Spend 1 entire day in prayer. Harder than it sounds, but doable. Like fasting, this is really an issue best cleared with God before attempting.
• Invite friends over to discuss what we can do to help Africa. I should do this one three or four more times. Easily one of two most fun items on the list.
• Meet w/ financial planner. Not yet. Dreading it, but cannot say why.
• Knockout 3 items on honey-do list. Huge win. I completed eight the first week, fourteen in twenty days. I like doing stuff around the house.

Some of the things I am attempting are disturbing my comfortable routines. Honestly, it’s easier to drop back to the rut and laze around. But I’m pushing through to the end, hoping to learn more.

Comments welcome.

2 Comments

2 Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Comments are closed.