Why My 7 Day Challenge was Doomed to Fail Before it Even Started

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I should have known this challenge wouldn’t be a cure to all of my life’s problems. Or maybe I just needed to learn to eliminate the word “should” from my vocabulary entirely.

I began a 7 day challenge last Wednesday, July 31st, and had high hopes for my success. I assumed that if I simply did all of the things that I have felt I “should” be doing, all of my problems would be solved.

I think it all came down to what Doug, from Compass Strategies was kind enough to point out in a comment, “Don’t should all over yourself”. Perhaps I needed to take my own advice from my goldfish, but turn it around a bit and not “should” where I sleep. A few short days ago, I didn’t realize this. I had thought for over a year now that my life would be better, if only I did everything that I thought I “should” do. The reality is that unhappiness lies in thinking that reality should be different than it is.

On my first day of my challenge I started reading the book “Loving What Is” by Byron Katie. With spectacular synchronicity, it arrived in my mail box the day before I started my challenge. And, it was exactly what I needed to read at that moment. I truly believe that there are no accidents. And, there is nothing I like better than someone that can prove me wrong. I thought that my life would be better, if only I did all the things that I thought I should be doing. Thankfully, beliefs that we hold to be true are meant to be challenged. They are meant to be questioned and analyzed, and proven wrong. Because if you are able to go through all the questioning and challenging of your beliefs that you hold sacred, and still prove them to yourself as being true, only then are they proven worthy of keeping. And Byron Katie had me proven wrong on Day One of my challenge.

“The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.”
-Byron Katie

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I have learned in the past few days that most of my unhappiness lies in the time that I spend worrying about what I should be doing. Part of me believes that if something is too difficult to do, then there are bigger reasons as to why it is not coming easily. For example, the biggest failure in my challenge was waking up at my desired goal of 8am. I think that the answer to this issue lies deeper than just having a loud enough alarm clock. I needed a reason to get up so early. Right now, sleep is more important than my reason to get up. This is quickly changing, as I am currently cultivating more passions and finding more enjoyment in my projects (like this blog!). I think the answer to my issue of wanting to wake up earlier is to plan things that I am so excited about getting up for that they out weigh the payoff of more hours of sleep. And this is no small challenge, seeing as I love sleep. But, the more things that I am ecstatically passionate about working on, the more I want to have extra hours in the day to focus on them. Being able to realize this in the past few days is a priceless epiphany, and shows me how naive I was by thinking that all I had to do was simply set the goal of waking up at 8am, and proclaiming to the world that I will do this!

My failure in that regard is kind of embarrassing. I wish that I could come back and report how I had completed my 7 day challenge perfectly, and brag about what a raving success I have proved myself to be. But, I can’t. I failed my challenge miserably. Yet, the lessons that I learned from failing makes me even more proud than simply achieving all of the mini-goals that I set for myself a week ago.

Self discipline is an elusive and difficult subject for me. I want more self discipline, but my stubbornness to not do what I really don’t want to do usually prevails. If I truly don’t want to do something, no matter how much my logical side tells me I should be doing it, I end up not. There has to be a good enough reason for my true motivations, and something that I truly believe in.

The other day when I read Glen’s post at PluginID, Rat Race or Not, You Are Your Own Boss, I realized something big. He said that your life is based on the actions you take. I tried to sculpt my 7 day challenge, based on this very idea. If I took different actions, then my life would change. This simple thought is so powerful and true, but made me realize that it’s also much deeper than that. The actions we take are based on the beliefs we hold. For example, if you believe you aren’t good enough, you won’t try to achieve big goals. Your core beliefs shape the actions that you take, so if you don’t have positive or worthy beliefs to base your actions on, you will be constantly taking the wrong actions. Or not enough action. I believe that sleeping more hours has a better pay off, than whatever I am getting up for. In order to change my action (the time I wake up), I can’t just simply set my alarm for a different time. I have to change my belief about the time I get up (that the reason is good enough). I have to change my beliefs. Can you see the little fireworks in my brain around this epiphany? Because they are going off spectacularly!!

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we hit it.”
~ Michelangelo

In conclusion, I am going to keep setting high goals. I actually did do pretty well in my challenge. Despite that waking up early goal (*cough* we’ll, just skip that one…), I did satisfy most of my goals on most days. I am going to continue working on the goals that I set for my 7 day challenge (including waking up earlier!), but instead of just forcing myself to change my actions, I am going to analyze the reasons behind why I believe them to be the correct actions that I should be taking.

Are there things that you want to change about your life, but your core beliefs are not in line with your desired outcome? I’d love to hear about any similar experiences that you have had with this!