How Not to Fail A 30 Day Challenge | Writing

What is a 30-Day Challenge Tips?

A 30-day challenge is a strategy for developing a new habit.  unless you’re me, and you fail to think it through properly.

Why I set myself a 30-Day Challenge Tips Challenge

Sometimes, you just need to give yourself a kick up the a** to set things in motion or get back on track. We all have our own reasons for setting ourselves a 30-day challenge; here were mine:

• I had been telling myself that I would write about my travels – for years; I had even built this little website for that purpose. But then I avoided it. I let life get in the way and, like many of us, just never got around to doing anything about it.
• I wanted a space to talk about all things travel and express a bit of creativity through photography and words. I knew that sharing it in a public space would help me to evolve and grow because there’s so many things you learn when you challenge yourself.
• To be very honest, I also wanted a quick way to respond to people who were asking for tips for upcoming trips. How not to fail a 30-Day Challenge Tips

My 30-day writing challenge took me 56 days to complete. In short, I went about it all wrong. Here are 3 things you can do to ensure that you successfully complete your 30-day challenge:

1. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Set a realistic and quantifiable goal. For example, if you’re setting yourself a fitness challenge, the goal is not “to finally get fit”; the goal might be to “go to the park across the road and exercise for 30 minutes every day for 30 days” – increased fitness is the welcomed by-product of the action.
2. Create time. Time can often be hard to find, especially in the chaos of our everyday lives when it constantly seems to be in short supply. If you want to complete a 30-day challenge then you need to make time for it. Be realistic with yourself: how much time are you willing to set aside in order to prioritise your goal? Why not take 30 minutes of the time you spend on social media or in front of the TV and substitute it with 30 minutes of dedication to your challenge? Whether it is 30 minutes or one hour, stick to it.
3. Choose your rhythm. We can all start a day feeling motivated and ready to achieve goals, but life – and the mind – has this ability to throw us off track.

So, where did I go wrong? Well, I failed to do all three of the above. I decided to set myself the challenge of writing ‘something’ every day for 30 days. The problem arose from the fact that I had never intended to just “write something“.

Seemingly, what I had meant when I vocalised this challenge was that I wanted to write 30 articles for my website.. You see the problem here, right?

• No quantifiable boundaries in terms of time – or words. When a goal is endless, you’ve already failed.
• The additional (and unnecessary) pressure of trawling through hard-drives of disorganised travel photos… and then editing them.
• Fact-checking the blotchy names of places and companies that I had wanted to mention in the articles.
• Working through unexpected technical glitches because it wasn’t the easy ‘pen and paper’ option that I could have gone for.
• Flying off to visit new places and friends for 3 weeks of the 30 days.

The list goes on. I had, in hindsight, set myself up for nothing but failure.

What I learned from my 30-day challenge

30-day challenges are great for kick-starting progress in any aspect of your life. A 30-day challenge that revolves around writing or self-expression, however, can be tough… especially if you pride yourself on being a creative soul. Even if you’re an Editor, writing for yourself rather than a brand, can bring about feelings of vulnerability. Here are my three key takeaways from my 30-day writing challenge:

1. There will always be people who judge you.  Remember that this is a reflection of themselves, not you. Get past it – stop caring.

2. There will always be people who support you, too. For every one person who passes judgement, there will be another 50 kind-hearted souls who support you. And that’s the kind of kindness we all need to bring to the table of life.

3. The first few days will seem like a chore. Completing 30 days of anything will seem like an uphill struggle, but it gets easier

Once you let go of fear, judgment, and self-criticism, you’ll start to focus on your journey of progress and you’ll develop inner confidence, alongside a new, healthy habit.

Pay it forward: the next time you see or hear of a friend who has set themselves a 30-day challenge, know that they are trying to overcome an obstacle, to better themselves in some way, to build new habits; maybe, they’re simply trying something new. Ping them a quick message, support their journey, and wish them well. Be happy for them.