{"id":2572,"date":"2017-12-26T15:10:21","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T21:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2017-12-26T15:10:21","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T21:10:21","slug":"the-power-of-december-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2572","title":{"rendered":"The power of December challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am in the final stretches of my December blogging challenge<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve done this with other challenges in the past (exercise, meditation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

While some folks start their New Year’s Resolution’s in January, I find that December works better for me (maybe July will be better for you).\u00a0 A challenge is different than a resolution, because a resolution has no end date, where a challenge stops.\u00a0 Also, because of the holidays, this month is already choppy.\u00a0 That means if I take some time each day to do something new, it’s not going to impact other obligations as much as it would in a less choppy time.\u00a0 December is also the darkest month in Boulder; having a task to ‘check off’ every day feels like progress, and that feels good.<\/p>\n

You can either pick a new thing or a task you’ve tried to do in the past.\u00a0 All of my experience is with the latter.\u00a0 New things are often exciting enough for me that I don’t need any kind of push to experience them.\u00a0 But something I’ve tried lackadaisically that I intellectually know is worth exploring–that kind of challenge is perfect for a month.<\/p>\n

A month is long enough to give a new habit a chance and to learn some of the benefits and warts of it. It’s also short enough that you can gut your way through it.\u00a0 I read about people doing challenges for a year, but I am not sure I have the mental stamina to commit for that long.\u00a0 After some December challenges, I was happy to drop the activity, because I didn’t get much value from it (or not enough for the effort).\u00a0 Others I picked up later.<\/p>\n

As far pure mechanics, I’ve found that a PDF calendar that you can ‘X’ out each day is helpful.\u00a0 Post this someplace you will see it (by your bed or your desk).\u00a0 Get a big sharpie and enjoy the ‘X’ing out process.<\/p>\n

I also think it’s important to publicly state any kind of ‘I’m doing this for a month’ goals because that external pressure will help you when encountering a day where you really don’t want to do the task (like today, for me. haha). “Public” can mean announced on Facebook, Twitter or a blog, but it could be a conversation with your roommate or SO or family members.<\/p>\n

I know that this is a bit late for December 2017, but hopefully it will inspire you in the future–there are plenty of months for a challenge in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am in the final stretches of my December blogging challenge.\u00a0 I’ve done this with other challenges in the past (exercise, meditation). While some folks start their New Year’s Resolution’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifehack","category-useful-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}