You Gotta Try Out this 7 Day Personal Growth Challenge

If you ever feel like your life needs a change, then you have got to try this whole personal growth challenge thing.

I promise it will help you feel way more motivated and even excited. In this post, I am going to tell you all you need to run a successful personal growth challenge of your own that is going to make you feel so accomplished and refreshed.

Feeling motivated and excited about my day is something I have spent many, many years struggling with. Most of my adult life, feeling self-disciplined and motivated has been a challenge for me. I tend to muddle through many of my days with no plan.

To be fair though, I am usually reeling from recently completing a move or getting ready to make our next move.

So where does that leave things like “personal growth”?

Living unmotivated and feeling like you are just floating through life does not feel, look, or sound like growth at all. Just getting by is the opposite of growth.

This 7 Day Personal Growth Challenge is all about introducing and tracking a new habit into your days in order to improve your life.

You remember how I made up the “One week of no app time challenge?” This one is similar, but you get to choose what area you want to grow in.

Plus, if you call it a challenge it makes it more fun.

You get to make your own personal growth challenge too. This is like those Choose Your Own Adventure books. Let me explain.

Step one, you pick out ONE habit you NEED to focus on for seven days.

I think it is more effective to pick something you literally NEED to fix or start doing or stop doing rather than just something you think might be cool.

Picking something that you NEED to change ensures that you actually experience personal growth, hence the name personal growth challenge.

Examples:

-reading the Bible

-anything you have been procrastinating working on

-cutting out a food that is bad for you

-eating vegetables

-exercising

-calling someone

-journaling

-going through the steps of applying to college

-filling out job applications

-spending less time on Facebook

-prayer time

-spending more quality time with your kids

The list could go on forever, but those are a few examples.

We all have different areas of personal growth that we need to work on.

The thing I am working on is a habit, related to my own self-discipline. I have something I need to do, but I have lacked the self-discipline to actually work on that thing every day.

Maybe your weakness is in the area of self-discipline too. Or maybe yours is improving your physical, mental or spiritual health. You could also need help with self-control or responsibility. Whatever area your need is in, I think this challenge could help you.

What is my habit that I am focusing on?

I am focusing on returning to blogging. Recently, I have felt overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of a financial need our family has looming. We have to send four children to college. Now, we do expect them to help with that, but four kids is a truckload of college money.

Also, when we do finally get to retire to Alabama, I want a big house on some land. And you know what? Drat. That takes money too.

For the past seventeen years, I have not bothered to make any money. No money was worth the amount of time it would take away from running the house and parenting our children. Also, we move every two to three years, but that is another story.

These days working from home is more doable than it used to be. I can absolutely work from home by writing, and it is time to get back to doing that.

So my personal growth habit is to write every single day.

I used to do this as second nature, but now I have to make myself do it. Thankfully, I do still enjoy it.

Step 2 of the Personal Growth Challenge

Now you need a system to track your habit. We are going to use a very simple system.

No, I am not going to recommend an iphone app for this!!

Do you know what happens every single time I pick up my phone to do something productive?

I end up forgetting what I was doing completely and checking my email or Instagram or something. Phones are way too distracting for me.

How to Track Your Challenge Habit:

Grab some post-it notes. Write the seven days of the week, one day on each sticky note. Then stick them together nicely in the area where you spend most of your time.

I spend most of my time in our kitchen, so my sticky notes are all on my kitchen cabinet. They are not on the counter because they would get messed up there, but they are working nicely on the cabinet.

Seven days or six days?

The personal growth challenge is for seven days, not six. However, I have officially kept Sunday as my day of rest for ages. Since my habit is work-related, I get to be off on Sunday.

If your habit is exercise, you might need to take Sunday off too. But if your challenge is to go seven days without saying any swear words, then you will need all seven of your sticky notes.

So gauge for yourself how many days of actively practicing your habit that you need.

Step Three of the Challenge

Choose a time each day for when you are going to do this!!

Having a dedicated time to write has been a weakness of mine for years. I have a tough time sticking to schedules. Yes, I want to stick to them, but the thing is I seem to be incapable of it.

Every day looks so different as a stay at home mom. Tomorrow the HVAC men are coming. I will probably do my writing while they are here because I cannot leave during that time anyway. But today I am doing my writing at 4:30 pm. It seems like no two days are the same.

It is okay if it isn’t the same exact time everyday. Just have a plan for when you are going to work on your habit built in to each day.

Step 4: Know Your Why!!

I am the kind of person who needs a convincing reason to do any thing. If I don’t think it’s worth my time, I’ll just play a game on my phone instead. Ha! That may sound lazy, but it’s true.

Think about why this habit is important enough to you to spend a whole week thinking about it. Write down what the reasons are. Oftentimes, I need to go back and remind myself why I am bothering to do it.

It would be a great idea to write your reasons why you are working on this habit on another little sticky note and hang it beside the days of the week!

Why only 7 days??

Well, the truth is I have a hard time with following through with longer challenges. “30 days” of introducing anything at all new to my day is far too much for me. My mind actually begins to boggle and give up completely if we are talking more than a week at a time in my life.

Seven days is easier for me to focus on. I can give you a week, but a month sounds too long to me.

But you can keep going after 7 days if it works!

If this works, and you see benefits from it, keep it going and going and going until it is so second nature you don’t need any reminders anymore.

In summary, what are you waiting for? Let’s do this!!

Pick your habit change and write it down. Then fill out your post-it notes and hang them where you will see them. Check off each one as you have accomplished them.

Comment below what your 7 Day Personal Growth Challenge will be about. I would love a chance to cheer you on.