Filed under: Life Choices
I’m two days past the end of my first “30 Day Challenge,” trying to decipher what I learned. (If you have no clue what I’m talking about, read 30 Day Challenge: Gini got me into this.)
Results
- Walk dog 6x/week. Dropped it (here’s why). Drop = tie.
- Limit TV to 14 hrs/week (incl. football). Averaged 12.6. Win.
- Check email only 3x/day. (Here’s why). Tie.
- 5 healthy dinners/week. Averaged 6 for a win.
- Water, water, water… gallon/day. Averaged 5.5 days/week. Loss.
- 5 workouts/week. Averaged 5.5. Win!
- 5 small meals/day, 5 days/week. Averaged 5. Win.
- Read 1 book on relationship development, 1 on leadership. Read 1.4. Loss.
- Spend 1 entire day in prayer. Win.
- Invite friends over to discuss what we can do to help Africa. Win.
- Meet w/ financial planner. Fail. No excuses.
- Knockout 3 items on honey-do list. Completed 20 and received excellent kisses. Meeeeeyoww, baby – win!
Overall 7 wins, 3 losses, 2 ties. I’m just OK with 7-3-2. That’s not good enough for me, but I’m not going to hang myself either. In my first season, I made it to a nice holiday bowl game.
Lessons
Dropping a task is acceptable in the 30 Day Challenge world. Honestly, if you don’t drop a task along the way it’s probably because you didn’t try anything stupid. You’re probably not trying enough new things.
Failing stinks, but if you aren’t failing, you’re probably not stretching yourself either. In my next challenge (likely January), I’ll try something out of my comfort zone, something with a high chance of failure. If I fail, I’ll hate it, but if I succeed, I win big.
Many of my challenges were in the wellness category. All of us have an old uncle advising: “When you have your health, you have everything.” When I was a bullet-proof, twenty-something, I though my uncle was just old. Now I’m old[er], and I think he was wise. Paying attention to water consumption in high-heat Austin drought, was a smart move. When I didn’t, I paid with dehydration headaches during a couple of deceptively cool 93-95 degree days spent working outside. Stupid.
Before the challenge, I was averaging less than four workouts per week, so by setting a much higher than normal goal, I improved significantly. I wake up most days with a lot of low-back pain. That’s gotten worse since I returned from Kenya in July. My mood, however, improved as I worked out more often meaning that I deal with the pain better than I did when I exercised less.
As a result of eating in a way that boosts metabolism (5 small meals/day) and working out more, I lost 6 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of lean muscle in a month. This month, I will have to spend $30-40 having my pants taken in. I’m not complaining.
Reading and career success are intertwined in the same way that water, eating well, and exercising lead to wellness. I like to read and I really like career success. I like to learn as I read, so my usual fiction:non-fiction ration is 1:5. I also take a lot of notes as I read (notes that I later use in teaching life balance classes). So, I’m fine with not completing my reading goal. To read two books per month is easy, but to digest and be able to teach the content of two books per month now seems overly ambitious. The important point seems to be that I set a work-related reading goal and stay on plan.
Whatever success I have in my work for the last 25 years, and it’s been high, I correlate to the time I spend with God. God grants success in case you’re wondering. For me, spiritual grounding leads to career success. Prayer, Bible reading, contemplation, study, listening to God – all that stuff pays rich dividends in my life. I’m spiritually saturated, and I want to stay full. So I planned another prayer day for this month.
Relationships are also very important to me. As a bonus, I found that spending time talking with friends about Africa not only solidified those friendships, but it revealed new opportunities for meaningful work over there. I’ve planned another Africa conversation for October.
I’m looking forward to seeing if I’ve really defeated some old, bad habits as a result of this challenge. Whenever one adds something into his or her life, it takes time away from something else. No adds without corresponding drops. The point of this kind of challenge is to feed good habits and starve bad ones. I didn’t drop many activities with this challenge, and I found myself time-pressed in ways I did not like. So the next couple months, I’m hunting margin. My next 30 Day Challenge will likely include as many things to quit or dial down as it does things to add.
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Congratulations Jack. Sticking with the challenge to the end is an accomplishment in it’s self. Great post!
Comment by Amanda Hite (@sexythinker) October 7, 2011 @ 5:48 am