How do you set a challenge for self?
Determine what your needs, desires, and goals are and what steps it will take to move toward them. I started by making a list of what it was I needed to improve myself and then put it all under categories. For me it was those items listed in the picture above: more water intake, better nutrition, more movement, spiritual alignment, and reaching toward personal goals. Some call these “pillars” of improvement. They are the basics or foundation of your challenge. And of course you will need to break down and bullet point for yourself what each of those pillars will entail. And then for fun – give it a name. I chose to call mine “The Nudge”. I’m starting it March 1. I’ll explain below.
I wrote a goal statement for my challenge that says: “I want to be the best me I can be, with focus on wellness, well-being, stride improvement toward goals, and last but certainly not least, spiritual alignment.
Defining the challenge.
As mentioned above, you really need to define your challenge by asking yourself if you could change yourself, what would you change? Go across your whole self. Mind, body, goals, dreams, spirituality, happiness. Set your pillars for your challenge in what you want of those things. And do things every day toward them.
Here’s how I defined my Nudge Challenge:
Water – Drinking 75 oz per day (I’m including coffee and tea and any non-sugar drinks as a part of this, but not alcohol)
Nutrition – Less sugar*, Increase protein, decrease starch, increase greens, increase veggies, maintain fruits and grains per day.
Movement – 100 movement exercises per day, 10 min of walking or heart rate exercise** per day, 20 minute of exercise on weekend days.
Personal – Requirement to do something every day toward a personal goal or hobby or toward “my happy”. For this it is: Learning Final Cut Pro, learning my camera, learning to vlog better, video creation improvement, watching videos for inspiration and ideas. For me this is on top of the regular blogging and vlogging. I have decided that there are two levels to this Personal category. I will also include reading, resting, shopping, watching a show, or doing just about anything to up the Happy Level. ;-). So a win-win category.
Spiritual – I already do a Prayer Journal and Bible Reading every day. I don’t have a lot of time to add in extra Bible study, but I’ve decided for a period of time, that I will do a trade-off or a mix up and will do a Bible study during my prayer/journal time and I will do prayer time on the way to work. My goal is to realign my goals with God’s goals for me, and to accept his guidance on the issues I struggle with the most.
*Still working and researching the sugar part. I won’t be able to cut all of it out but need to determine a gram level per day that works for me. For now, it will be a conscious effort to reduce the intake until determined.
**I have trouble fitting exercise in my day – I’d rather be geeky and do other things. So for me to get 10 min in a day is a big deal. I will never get 20 in, if I can’t get 10 in first.
Choosing the name of the challenge.
I chose to call mine “The Nudge Challenge”. I am having a tough time right now and trying to figure out a few things with my time, schedule, and routine. This is not a new problem with me. I had to go through similar adjustments when I became married, became a mother and was working full time, and I have had recent big changes that really has taken most of my spare time. I’m adjusting slowly. But the reason for naming this challenge “The Nudge” is because I don’t have time for a full blown challenge where I’m tracking, detailing, and analyzing every move. It would send me over the edge right now to go to that degree. There is a time and place for that. It’s not now for me. I just need a nudge in the right direction. I need positive motion toward goals. So “The Nudge” it is.
Tracking the challenge.
Yes, measurable are important in most cases and in most challenges. If you can do this, by all means define your measurables. For me, my measure this time is very simple. Did you do it? Yes or No. I want to be better. I’ll never be perfect. I’m trying to create ongoing lifestyle habits in which I’m not going to be measuring every single day from now on. I’m not going to punish myself nor reward myself for this challenge. I just need to be a better self, move forward, and be physically, mentally, and spiritually better as I go along in the rest of my life. At the end of the day The Nudge Challenge simply will ask, Did you do better today? Yes or No.
Length of the challenge.
So, it takes, supposedly 14 days to develop a habit. And so my mind is thinking 21 days for my personal Nudge Challenge. Fourteen days of VERY strong alignment of a daily push toward the things, with an extra seven days of what I’ll call a “transition week”. Do I really know what that means? All I can say is that I want the habits to stick but I’m not going to be hyping over these things every day like I will the first two weeks. I guess that third week will be a transition week to being able to figure out how to maintain these things without having to put a lot of focus and effort to it – how will I maintain these habits for the long haul. So yeah, my challenge will be 21 days with the first 14 being focused and the last 7 being a transition focus on how to maintain these things ongoing.
Over all setting your own challenge can be exciting and purposeful and fulfilling. Even if you are not perfect, you are making strides to goals that you have for your life. I challenge you to set your own challenge, with your own pillars.
If you were to do one, what would your goals be?
Personal Updates: Riding the Waves
So I’m doing better today. I woke up this morning with my thoughts going alive, and God said, “let’s get this challenge going Sonya”. He didn’t really, but I speak often with God and he often sends me little ideas and thoughts and He sent his spiritual buddy “the spirit, the comforter, the nudger” to be with me and He is. So I began thinking of things again instead of just “trying to get through the day”. It’s just been a tough week. Work has been – well, let’s just say – “not so good” with so many things outside my own control having been a factor. Personal life has been dull. Rain and rain and rain and horrible grey days with no sun have greatly impacted the mood. Lack of eating nutritiously have obviously played a huge role in how I have felt. I haven’t wanted to do anything. Even the joys that I normally get from video creation and blogging have been downers. Final Cut Pro, as I start this next video, is not doing what I wanted – at every turn (everything I do) it won’t do what I want and requires another video. I thought I had learned a lot but can’t even get started on the next video without having to watch other videos to get me started. I’m discouraged about so many things at once so life has really taken me down a dumpy road across most portions of my life. This challenge should help and I feel better already. I still am having moments of heading toward depression though – like I don’t want to do anything or think about anything. I don’t want to make decisions, I don’t want to clean. I don’t want to organize, analyze. I just want to sit, stare, drink coffee and let the thoughts come and go. But today is better as I woke up with this challenge worked out in my head. It had been plaguing me for days. I haven’t been able to make lists or think much about anything until today. So that is a good sign. This post is a good sign.
I appreciate your comments recently and worries over my well being. I’ve been a little worried too. I have days where I have down days like everyone else but this one has been going strong for probably a couple of weeks. I’m sure if I go back to other years of blogs I will see similar happening in the last couple of weeks of February. I’ll have to see. Maybe not to this extent. I said before that I think it’s been the perfect storm of so many things catching up to me at once across many portions of my life. But I think we are on the mend. One can only hope.
I talked with God for a long while about my schedule and routine and time. We didn’t really come up with many answers. I can’t quit my job right now. I can’t really lose any more sleep. I don’t want to give up my hobbies as they are what brings me joy. The only answers I can come up with are doing my hobbies less often, not giving work anything over a certain amount of hours, coming up with a more set routine with Mom. I’ve even asked myself if I needed to have a different job where I could work from home or have less hours and less of an issue at year end. And I’m posting that here for all to read, simply because I decided it’s easier at my age to stick with something you love and enjoy with a commute (it’s not really all that bad but it does take up to 45 min extra from door to door) than to have to learn something new just to be able to work from home. I have always had the power to stick through with most jobs even when they frustrated the hell out of me. Overall though, this job is perfect for me. And God keeps saying “you are the one I’ve chosen to do this job – it’s you that can keep track of this and do these things in the order they should be done and in how you do them”. So I don’t want to let Him down.
The other thing we (God and I) looked at was to change my view or acceptance of what is. There will never be more than 24 hours a day. But to do that, I have to accept that I have very little free time to self care and I’m not sure I’m ok with that. I need to have some built in down time – not just blog time but time to decompress, work toward goals, get our own housework done and so forth, to see progress, to see a reason for living, to see that my life is worth something and has value to God, to others and myself.
I think the problems lie usually in that I’m a planner and there are so many things that are throwing me off unexpectedly. I never like elements of surprises on my time. I mean basically we have adopted another member of the family into our own with special needs if you want to think of it that way, and so I’m just trying to figure out how to balance my time on top of being in an apparent state of depression.
I’m a piece of work right now. There are so many things at so many levels I’m working through but God is there and I’m just having to work through it all with Him by my side. When a couple of things go awry, it makes you want to look at everything that is awry, too. It’s all good. I’m fine. It’ll be ok. Feeling much much more like myself today. Well not spot on, but getting there. Yes, We’ll get there. Just Lord, send some sunshine. Puhhhhleaase! Oh and while you are at it, send me to the beach and give me a dog.
Have a good weekend ya’ll.
3 responses to “Setting a Wellness Challenge for Yourself and a Personal Update”
4th try…
Sorry but I’m done
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