Challenge yourself every day! Sounds a little scary – right?
But beyond sounding a little scary, it’s actually one of a number of new imperatives each of us needs to consider and act on — every day!
Here’s why . . .
When you challenge yourself every day:
- Your life will be more focused, meaningful, and interesting.
- You’ll be more likely to feel increased energy and strength to move forward.
- You will find that you have better direction, focus, and waste less time.
- You will achieve more of what makes you happy.
- You’ll develop and exercise more self-discipline.
- You will become more self-confident as you meet many of your daily challenges.
- You will develop more and better daily habits—one step at a time.
- You will be a better model for others by focusing on improving yourself versus thinking about what others should do to improve themselves.
- You’ll feel a sense of growth in your life as you challenge yourself and meet those challenges more often.
- You respect for self will grow as you achieve goals and set new ones.
- You will trust yourself knowing you can stretch yourself, your skills, and your attitudes.
- You’ll be less likely to dwell on things that are unimportant and which add little or no value.
Here’s how to do it:
- Start your day as early as you can and go to bed at a reasonable time.
- Start meditating with Apps like Calm or Headspace. Add some time for “non-doing” – for just being you in the moment — that will serve to strengthen your mind.
- Exercise at least 3 times a week
- Consider getting involved in a new sport or activity and challenge yourself to make it a habit.
- Talk to others you admire or read about them and consider obstacles they have overcome. Consider how they’ve overcome these challenges and work to “mimic” their approaches.
- Share your dreams and plans with those you know will encourage you and help you move forward
- Encourage others who have shared challenges to face them head on. Be a cheerleader — for others and for yourself
- Find someone with similar goals and challenges — like saving more money, losing weight, or getting more organized — and swap ideas and inspirations. Support each other.
- Read something inspirational every day.
- Get outside in nature and let yourself be inspired by it. See things from the outside in and from the inside out.
- Take time away from social media. Set cut back goals often and keep them.
- Read more — novels, non-fiction, whatever interests you — and watch TV less.
- Identify materials (pictures, articles, books) that remind you of your goals and place them near your desk or other places you look at often.
- Practice journaling. Record what you’ve achieved and how you’ve grown. For example, record examples of when you are kinder, acting smarter, and becoming more informed, more thoughtful, more conscientious, or more self-aware. Write down what happened and how it made you feel.
- Plan big chunks of time (an hour or two) to be focused on a big goal and something you really want to achieve like graduating, exercising more, achieving a long-held dream or aspiration, and always allocate time and effort for achieving things that are important but may not be urgent – things that may get lost in the clutter of our daily lives.
What to avoid:
- Starting each day with lack of purpose — and failing to be happy, healthy, and open to learning something new every day.
- Criticizing yourself without good reason.
- Letting not setting a challenge for yourself become a continual habit.
- Allowing “perfect” to get in the way of achieving something better and concrete.
- Thinking you don’t have what it takes to succeed.
- Blaming external forces for your failures and not taking accountability for what you failed to do.
- Always comparing yourself to others rather than challenging yourself to make progress.
- Letting others defining your goals and challenges.
- Thinking there is only one way to achieve something.
- Obsessing over things you cannot control.
- Constantly looking for shortcuts that make you less disciplined, principled, and successful.
- Being self-obsessed and smug.
- Feeling sorry for yourself rather than looking at your behavior or situation as a learning opportunity and something you can change.
- Selling yourself short by ignoring your need to grow and change.
- Being satisfied with less than you know you deserve.
- Doing nothing instead of actively taking small steps.
- Just responding to what happens every day rather than choosing and focusing on what you want to become and accomplish.
Quotes
Every day is a new beginning to finish something.
Apoorve Dubey, The flight of Ambition
Every day is filled with spectacular moments. Seek them!
Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom, Great mind
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
Winston Churchill
Top 15 things Money Can’t buy Time. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.
Michael Altshuler
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
Mother Teresa
Coaching questions:
- Do you have a core set of values that are important to you? What are they?
- If you don’t have a core set of values, how might you start to think about what you value and use that to move forward in your life?
- How can you use these values to help you identify and overcome challenges for yourself?
- Do you have a vision of who and what you want to be? If not, when will you? What barriers are preventing you from having a personal vision?
- What are your strengths and what can you leverage when considering a vision for who you want to be. What weaknesses do you need to overcome?
- Are you one dimensional in everything you do? In other words, do you have goals and aspirations around one part of yourself like your appearance or getting ahead at work, and few or no aspirations with respect to other parts of your life like mental and spiritual health or being a good friend or family member? If yes, how did this happen? What might you do to re-think this narrow focus on yourself?
- What inspires you? Do more of that and listen to your inner voice.
- If you can’t think of what inspires you take a break and get out in nature. Use the time to explore your inner self. How will you make that happen?
Resources:
- It’s About Time | Time Management & Productivity for Work Life & Balance
- Personal Excellence Podcast
- Time Management for Productivity and Work-Life Balance
- 22 Ways to Challenge Yourself Every Day to Live Your Best Life
- 15 Ways To Challenge Yourself To Grow As a Person
- 50 SMALL WAYS TO CHALLENGE YOURSELF EVERY DAY
- 5 THINGS TO FOCUS ON WHEN YOU’VE LOST YOUR MOTIVATION
- HOW TO CHALLENGE YOURSELF AT WORK (WITH EXAMPLES)
- What to Do When You Have No Motivation
- Do 30-Day Challenges Actually Work?