7 Day Challenge: Facing My Fears and Embracing Self Discipline

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I don’t want to do this. Which is exactly why I need to do it. I have every excuse in the world, and every reason why later would be a better time. As I try to think of the perfect time to try out this self discipline challenge, I’ve realized that NOW is the perfect time.

For the past couple months, I have been considering keeping track of my life in detail, and make a huge, concerted effort at making changes. But, the problem is that I’m filled with excuses. I’m comfortable being stuck in my rut. It’s nice and warm and cozy down here. Which has made me realize that there is never going to be a perfect time to do anything. Life is constantly happening, with all of its issues, problems and distractions. If you want to make something happen, you can’t wait for life to present the perfect timing.

You have to make it happen.

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I’m not where I want to be in life. I want to change so much, do so much more, and achieve my dreams. I know I have the potential to do remarkable things, but potential is nothing if it’s never used. As I talked about in my last post that I think the basis of most of my problems is fear. Fear keeps you stuck. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of change. Fear of judgment. Fear of criticism. I’m tired of spinning my wheels in the quicksand of fear, so I’ve decided to be uncomfortable. It’s time to make myself more uncomfortable, and just see how I deal with it.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
— Neale Donald Walsch

Since I’m resisting doing this challenge, it’s probably the best reason why I need to take it on now. Not in a few days, not next week or next month, but NOW. Which is why I am starting tomorrow, July 30th. A huge part of me is actually positive and super excited about doing this, despite the fears. I want to be an early rising-fit-productive-energetic-creative individual. I am incredibly excited to take on this challenge, but my initial start date was July 1st. A month has come and gone due to procrastination, flying past me quicker than the excuses can enter my mind.

I struggle with ginormous perfectionist tendencies that have done more self destruction than ever benefited me. I want to do everything perfectly. I want to do things at just the right time, with just the desired result. I want it all to line up perfectly and everything to be clean cut and work just right. But, you know where that leads? Nowhere. Perfection is not reality. Life is never perfect. And although it is difficult for me to embrace this reality, it’s the truth.

I’ve wanted to try out a self discipline challenge based on this concept….

What if I did everything that I think I should be doing?

I should wake up earlier every day.

I should write more.

I should eat healthier.

I should exercise regularly.

I should take better care of myself.

I should organize this, or clean that.

The thing is, I’m an excellent dieter, until I get hungry. I’m awesome at planning a productive, active day, until the alarm goes off early. In other words, I suck at self discipline. So, how do you get more self discipline? Just do it. And do it, over and over and over and over. So, that’s my plan. I’m getting ready to make myself uncomfortable.

Why 7 days?

I’ve picked this time period because it seems do-able. Part of me wants to do a 21 day, or 30 day trail period, but I would like to start with a period of time in which I can be as successful as possible. My plan is to evaluate carefully how this week goes, and then plan for longer periods of time based on my upcoming successful next week.

So, here’s the plan. I have a checklist of what my ideal day would look like. I usually do some combination of these things every day, but not all of them at the same time. A few things are new, a bit of a stretch, and might be more of a challenge than others. I never wake up at 8am unless I have to work the odd morning shift here or there on the weekends. But, in my ideal world, I wake when the birds begin chirping. Other things on this list are activities that I have done for different periods of time in the past year that I have enjoyed the results. The difference is that starting tomorrow, I am doing them all at the same time. I could bore you with my reasoning behind each activity, or the root of why each thing is particularly challenging from past bad experiences. But, I’ll spare you.

The list of required daily activities includes:
* Waking up at 8am
* Writing Morning Pages (as described in The Artist’s Way)
* Writing down morning gratitude
* having breakfast within 1 hour of getting up
* Eating a healthy snack before lunch
* Taking daily vitamins
* Exercise at least 30 mins.
* Keep a food journal of everything I’ve eaten or drank
* Keep a money journal of income and itemized spending for the day
* Do 30 mins. of cleaning or organizing anything
* Read at least 15 mins. of something meaningful
* Drink at least 2 Liters of water
* Eat two fruits and three servings of veggies
* Floss daily
* Turn lights out by 11pm

This might be more detail and personal information than the average reader needs, but I am using this public platform to commit to myself and all three of my subscribers that I will do this even when it doesn’t feel good. I’ll be posting follow up posts, depending how often I’m inspired this week.

Bring on the discomfort, and wish me luck!