101 Challenges: Become the Best You

By Tad Mitchell

Whether you're a wellness professional or a health conscious individual, 101 Challenges is an invaluable resource when it comes to positive change. 101 Challenges makes building positive habits fun. As you take the challenges, you'll find yourself and/or your organization becoming happier, healthier, and more productive than you ever thought possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9780996441742

Book preview

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Introduction

Whether you are an individual trying to improve your personal well-being or a health professional designing wellness programs for large populations, it’s important to ask yourself this question: If you aren’t building habits, what are you doing?

You are the sum of your habits. The way to redefine yourself is to change your habits. You can go on a crash diet and pounds will be lost, but unless new habits are developed in the process, the weight will eventually return. Such is life. In anything you do, unless you build habits, you will always revert to your former self.

So, forming new habits is great, but where do you start, how far should you reach, and how can you make it fun? That’s where challenges come in. Properly designed challenges provide a framework for habit formation. Challenges have a goal, a beginning, and an end. Challenges make building habits approachable and doable. They turn the overwhelming subject of self-improvement into baby steps that anyone can do.

How to Use This Book

To change yourself or your organization for good:

1. Pick a challenge.

2. Do it.

3. Repeat.

It’s that simple. Sometimes the habit will stick. Sometimes it won’t. Either way, you’ll be moving in the right direction—becoming a better you.

Habits

A habit is defined as something we do automatically, without thinking. We do hundreds of things each day without thinking. Think about the last time you drove your car. When you arrived, you didn’t even remember stepping on the gas, looking in the mirror, or turning your blinker on. You were on autopilot. Instead of concentrating on the tasks of driving, you were probably thinking about something completely unrelated.

For most of what we do, we are on autopilot, otherwise we couldn’t do half the things we do. The brain can only focus on a few things at once. Think back to when you were learning how to drive. There were so many things you had to do simultaneously that sometimes you could easily forget to do one of them, like turning on your blinker or checking your blind spot. The learning process was stressful. It’s the same as we develop new habits. If we try to juggle too many new habits at once, it will become too difficult and we won’t build any.

Developing a healthy lifestyle is a lot like learning to drive a car. It can take years to build the right habits, but once you do, you can maintain your health without giving it much thought. Imagine what else you could accomplish if taking care of your health happened automatically.

How to Build a Habit

Below is the 6-step process for building habits from my book, 21 Habits: A Wellness Survival Guide.

1. Believe It. Pick a habit that you are excited about and believe in.

2. Shrink It. Break the habit down into something that is so easy that you can’t not do it.

3. Trigger It. Choose a trigger for the habit, ideally something that already happens.

4. Prepare for It. Get the tools needed and prepare your environment for success.

5. Track It. Write down each time you do your habit so you can see your progress.

6. Be It. Make the habit part of your identity.

The great thing about challenges is that they bundle up these six steps into a single, fun package, which makes it easy for you to focus on forming new habits.

Challenges

Challenges are a great tool for building habits. First of all, they have a limited duration—allowing you to try something without committing to it. Challenges also require you to track your progress—helping you to succeed. Furthermore, they can be done in a group—providing a social experience, friendly competition, and peer support. Finally, they are fun—everyone likes a challenge!

How to Design a Challenge

While challenges can be powerful, they can also fail miserably. Below are some guidelines that will help you design your own challenges. Who knows what you’ll come up with?

•Make Everyone a Winner. Challenges should allow all participants to achieve the goal and associated reward. It’s okay to track who is leading, but it’s best to not reward the leader(s)—they already have their