You might have noticed that I haven't talked about the 30 Day Challenge much lately. That is because towards the end of the 30 days it should be much easier to stick to your actionable goal without much thought. At this point it should fall within habit territory and the amount of will power it took at the beginning of the month to stick to your plan should not be necessary at the end of the month. That being said, if you are still struggling with your first actionable goal, if it is not a habit yet then you either need to break it down into even smaller steps (you bit off more than you could chew) and just pick one of those steps (remember that your actionable goal should not require any additional steps to complete it successfully every time) OR you just need another 30 days to continue to make turn it into a habit which is fine. Most habits do require 90 days or more to build and it is just fine to need more time. It just means your goal for the next 30 days will be to keep on keepin' on with your first actionable goal.
If you fall into the category where you feel you are ready to take the next step then keep reading.
The first thing you need to do is pull out your original goals sheet. This was mine.
Just a brief recap, we came up with 5 categories of our life that we would like to work on, we put them in order first by importance and then by the amount of effort required to change them from easiest to hardest. We focused on the list by effort because in order to not quit you have to be able to make realistic changes successfully in order to stay focused (If you tackle unreachable goals first you set yourself up for failure and probably will not stay the course.), and also because sometimes the harder goals either rely on the easier goals be accomplished first to even be attainable or will fall in line on their own as the easier goals are reached. Then we took our first and easiest category and broke it down in to 5 actionable steps that require no other steps in order to be accomplished and also put those in the order that makes the most sense. (If you have to accomplish one in order to accomplish another then you can't put the first step last obviously.)
So, you should now be able to cross the first actionable step off your list.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pat yourself on the back!
You now only have to keep living that step exactly the way you are right now and you will always be living one step that brings happiness and satisfaction into your life. The old behaviors are gone and the new one is your new way of life.
It is time to begin Round 2 of the 30 Day Challenge!!!
Now, our next step is to take the second category in our list by effort and break it down into 5 actionable steps that require no other action in order to accomplish them.
As you can see from my list my next category by effort is home, so I will now come up with a list of 5 actionable steps that have to do with what I consider to be an improvement of my home or my life at home. I;m going to write them down with pen and paper because it has a bigger impact on your soul than typing ever will. I encourage you to do the same.
My list example looks like this.
Now, since you have accomplished your first actionable step from your original list you can remove that item from the list, move the last 4 items up one line and then add your FIRST actionable step from this new list to the number 5 spot of your old list.
My example now looks like this.
Now, your goal for the next 30 days is to successfully accomplish your first actionable step. My example would be that I will be eating at least one serving of raw vegetables every day.
So you might be wondering why bother updating the entire list every single time if we are only going to be focusing on one actionable goal? Well, first of all the action of writing your goals helps to solidify them in your soul as I stated before. Second, by writing them down you actively put 5 goals into your consciousness and you may find that as you begin to feel better and successfully accomplish your actionable goal you might find that you are also subconsciously doing some of your other goals also. For example, according to my example, last month I was supposed to drink one less can of soda per day. What I found though was that because I had my health at the forefront of my mind I also was doing things like replacing bad food choices with good ones and many days ate raw vegetables just because I felt good about accomplishing the goal of not drinking as much pop and was spending energy focusing on my health. Just having those extra goals in mind now could make accomplishing them in later months easier. Having them happen now doesn't mean they won't still be 100% our focus later, but if you happen to do more positive things during your 30 Day Challenge unintentionally then so be it. Like I've said before, sometimes just achieving one goal successfully changes our entire perspective and our environment so much that other goals just start to fall in line. The more rounds of this 30 Day Challenge that you complete the more you will find this to be the case.
Are you ready to get started on another 30 days of success???
Consider today day 1. Start right now.
TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
MAKE IT COUNT!
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