100 Day Challenge. Create the Life You Love- One Small Step at a Time
Last week in a patient group I facilitate in an Internal Medicine Clinic I invited participants to join a 100 Day Challenge.
The idea is to commit to one thing you will do every day for the next 100 days. This harnesses the power of small changes to transform your health and any area of your life.
The 100 Day Challenge has been around for a long time, perhaps developed by Gary Ryan Blair who has an inspiring website with great resources. I’ve used the 100 Day Challenge before to create new habits and just today googled to see where the idea came from and found his great work.
My current commitment is to clear clutter for at least 10 minutes every day. Last night I started with my inbox and stayed with it an hour until my box at the server went from 22,456 emails to empty! (Ouch… I cringe to admit that!)
A few suggestions for the 100 Day Challenge:
1. Choose one small thing that will help you move toward a change you want to create in your life.
2. Choose something measurable, verifiable and do-able that is not yet part of your daily life. Examples:
- Drink a glass of water in the morning before coffee and breakfast.
- Write 3 gratitudes every night before you go to sleep.
- Walk for 10 minutes every day.
- Spend 7 minutes a day tuning into yourself and just feeling your breath move in your body.
- Take 10 minutes a day to follow your creative muse in your favorite way.
- Eat 5 (or 3 or 9- whatever is your small stretch!) servings of vegetables every day.
- Spend 10 minutes every day de-cluttering an area of your home.
- Go to bed by 10pm every night (or 8 or 11…).
- Give your partner 5 spoken appreciations each day.
3. Decide what support, structure or supplies you will need. Set yourself up for success.
4. Decide when you will start.
5. Make your commitment to yourself. Put it in writing. Stand with your feet rooting into the earth and say it out loud.
I, ________, commit to __________ everyday for 100 days, starting today, ________.
I want to do this because:
Things that may help you commit to the change you want:
• Support
• Prayer
• De-stress
• Sleep
• Accountability
• Play, fun and laughter
• Visualize the positive results
• Connecting with your why. Why do you want to do this?
• Be kind with yourself. If you miss a day, just get back into it as soon as possible.
• Be curious. What resistance comes up for you in committing to this positive habit?
• Re-write and re-say your commitment and your why regularly.
• Remember who you are doing it for.
• Claim yourself as someone who owns this new habit.
There is a magic to committing to one small positive change: it tends to expand and to multiply as it becomes your new habit.
Commit to walking ten minutes a day and pretty soon you’ll be walking twenty minutes and then you may naturally want to eat better and then you will have more energy to take that class you’ve been wanting to take and then you’ll ….?!