I've spoken about my monthly challenges before, but in this post I'm going to go into detail on how I use them, how I track them, and why I would recommend them over New Year's Resolutions.
Many new year's resolutions involve forming habits like eating healthily, getting fit, learning a new skill, saving money, spending more time with friends, etc. You start the year off feeling that sense of obligation to better yourself, the initial motivation, "new year, new me"... but it takes immense mental strength to do something every day (or even every week) for 365 days. It's hard to see the end of the tunnel, especially if you're enjoying the process.
By comparison, a monthly goal is much easier to achieve. Last January, I went to the gym (almost) every day, and in the months after, I went to the gym twice a week which is a much more realistic goal for maintaining fitness. I've read that it takes between 21 and 66 days to form a habit, yet most people give up on their resolutions by the second week of the year. If they had worked at it for another two weeks, they could have been well on their way to forming a good habit! I think that by setting yourself long term goals without breaking them up into smaller, more achievable ones, you're deliberately setting yourself up for failure.
This January, I've set myself the challenge of no spending. I've set some exceptions: expenditure that I call "survival such as rent, bills and groceries; and any subscriptions I've already committed to, like Netflix and Spotify. It's good to have rules and exceptions like this. Last January, the reason I didn't go to the gym all 31 days was because I took 6 days off to get better from an illness. At first, I thought I had failed and the thought of giving up then did cross my mind. But I reminded myself that it was necessary for me to take the time off, just as important to my health as exercising, and 80% success was better than 30% success. Every single day that I dragged myself to the gym, I was dragging myself closer to that goal. I certainly wouldn't have been able to do it for the full 365 days.
I've made two changes to my monthly challenges this year: I will choose my challenge at the beginning of the month, rather than the beginning of the year. This is going to allow me to be more flexible depending on what's going on. There's no point having a "meet with friends" goal if another lockdown is put in place, for example. The second change is rewards. I'm setting rewards for 50%, 80% and 100% success, and setting price budgets for those rewards. I'm hoping that this will help curb my recent habit of impulsive spending as well, as it will incentivise me to work for something rather than buying it straight away. I use this in conjunction with my Wish List page.
And finally, I track it using the calendar-shaped checkbox system you've seen in the pictures, as well as on my monthly habit tracker page.
I have way too many goals in life to even attempt them all at once! By splitting them up across different months, I'm able to attempt a wide range of them, and keep things interesting by switching it up! What are your goals for this month? And how will you reward yourself for achieving them?
- Happy Bill
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