The 5-step process I took to create a 30-day personal challenge
A lot of hype has been circulating on social media and blogs about doing a “30-day personal challenge”. Whether that’s been related to fitness, money or personal growth, it’s a growing phenomenon. As a personal development fanatic myself, I was intrigued about how a 30-day challenge would benefit me personally and what results would come of it.
The backstory of this journey was a challenge set up by my speaking coach to improve my authenticity and confidence The initial challenge was to record myself to see how I spoke and thus how I could be perceived by people. I wanted to improve this, so I decided to do a 30-day speaking challenge in November 2020, whereby I would record myself asking questions and using self-belief body mantra talks to myself.
I did a talk on my results of the talk at London Java Community (LJC) in December 2020, and afterwards, attendees were really interested in creating their own challenge.
After offering advice and reflecting on my own experiences with this challenge, I thought I would write this blog post to help others curate their own personal challenge.
Here is the 5-step process that I used to plan my 30-day challenge.
Step 1-What is the context of the challenge?
Identify what you are struggling with now and understand how you can create a small challenge on improving that skill. Whether that means answering questions or looking to improve your yoga techniques, make sure it’s something specific and attainable for the 30 days.
Step 2- Do research
Scroll through the internet and find someone who has done a challenge similar to what you want to achieve. For me, it was reading through an article by Michael Thompson on Medium who recalled his experience for recording himself for 30 days. It was an eye-opener to see someone else’s experience during the challenge and look at their learnings.
Step 3-Make sure the challenge you’re doing relates to a bigger goal
Sure doing 50 squats a day sounds attainable to do for a 30-day challenge. But does it relate back to a bigger goal you’re trying to achieve? The aim of the challenge is to provide a pivot and boost towards a bigger outcome. For me, it was improving self-confidence to be able to present myself better, particularly as I’m currently looking to move into User Experience and Design, which focuses heavily on presenting results back to clients.
Step 4-Plan your time to do the challenge
This can be split into two concepts; The first relates back to the time you want to spend on the challenge. Most of the time, 5 minutes is enough to allocate per day to it. I spent 30 minutes per day doing my challenge, which was too much as have since done 5 minutes per day improving my speaking skills. However, I understand 5 minutes won’t be enough for other challenges such as writing or design skills, so allocate a reasonable yet sustainable time that won’t be disturbed per day.
The second relates to when you will be performing the tasks, as this can affect your motivation for continuing to do the challenge. I personally performed the challenge in the morning as this was when I was more awake and less likely to forgot to do the challenge. Nonetheless, it should be linked to when you feel more productive, whether that’s mornings, afternoons or evenings.
Step 5-Make sure it’s measurable
This is something I forgot to do when I did the challenge but having something you can measure your results with will help you to highlight the improvements during the process. Look at something you can measure, whether that is how many words you write or how quickly you did your morning run. Whatever it is, having something measurable will provide an effective feedback loop that will help you to improve in the long-term.
I hope I have inspired you to create your own personal challenge. Following this 5 step process can give you guidance on how you can create your own successful 30 day challenge
