From writing to fitness, I constantly challenge myself. I’m always working towards becoming the best version of myself in all things. And although I fail quite a few of them, I’ll keep trying until I succeed.
It’s all part of my attitude of never giving up, never surrendering.
With every challenge I don’t complete, I try to learn why and then use that knowledge to improve my chances for the next time. Unfortunately, my chaotic life has a habit of derailing my efforts rather quickly.
Still, I know I am nowhere near being at my best, so I’ll continue to strive for self-improvement.
Why Challenge Yourself?
Challenges can come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, you can run a couple of them simultaneously for greater effect. Or, if you’re like me, use the data to cover several pieces of content from a single challenge.
Challenges are a bit more than just goals. They are situations or objectives that force you to put in far more effort to accomplish by dialing up the difficulty.
Why would you want to challenge yourself in anything?
Understanding More About Yourself
First of all, challenges offer a great deal of information about who you are and what you can handle. They’re great for getting a baseline of your capabilities so you can work to surpass them.
They can also be quite eye-opening during the process regarding your personal level of input, where you falter, and what motivates you to achieve great things.
In other words, you learn a lot about yourself by putting in maximum effort to accomplish something.
Building Self-Confidence
Achieving goals and finishing challenges boosts your levels of self-confidence. This is especially true if you shatter previous personal records during the process.
When you start feeling confident in one area of your life, it bleeds into others. It will help with personal interaction, moods, and even career choices. And it all starts with a simple challenge to be better than you were yesterday.
Constant Self-Improvement
One of the biggest reasons why I am constantly challenging myself is self-improvement. As I said earlier, I don’t believe I am at my peak, despite closing in at 50 years old. I still have a lot that I can do in the coming years.
Whether I am improving my prowess as a dark fantasy author or being able to lift 5-gallon water jugs, I am always working to be better. So when I challenge myself, I am pushing the envelope to see just how far I can truly go.
Accomplishments Galore
As I said, I challenge myself in just about everything. I want to become a better writer. I want to become as healthy as I can be. And I want to look back and be proud of the things I have accomplished.
The great thing about challenges is that you can make them for virtually everything. Any objective you want to complete, you can work toward accomplishing with the right motivation and determination.
It all comes down to making the decision to be better than you are currently.
How to Properly Challenge Yourself
It’s one thing to say that you want to lose X amount of pounds this month. It’s another to challenge yourself to do so. It takes a lot of focus and motivation to see some of these through to the end.
Not setting up a challenge properly can also set you up for failure. So, let’s take a look at how to properly set up a challenge from start to finish.
Step 1: Be Realistic With Yourself
First of all, you want to be realistic with yourself and your capabilities. It’s OK to swing for the fences, but if you’re physically incapable of doing so, you’ll need to reel it back a bit.
For example, let’s say that you want to challenge yourself to lose 10 pounds in a month. According to the CDC, a healthy amount to lose per week is 1 to 2 pounds. I know from experience that I can lose 3 to 5 per week. So, challenging yourself to hit 10 pounds per week is unrealistic and could cause health problems.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but the point is that you want to be realistic with what you can handle and your end-game objectives.
Step 2: Push Yourself to “Win”
A challenge insinuates that it’s going to be difficult. You don’t want something that is too easy to accomplish, but not so hard that it’s nearly impossible. In any case, you want to push yourself to achieve those objectives.
It’s all about going beyond what you can handle to essentially prove to yourself that you can do it.
At the end of the day, you want to put in maximum effort. Remember, challenges are meant to discover just how much you can handle. Going at it with a half-assed attitude is only going to yield a half-assed result.
Step 3: Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Personal challenges are geared toward self-improvement. You’re not trying to outperform someone else. It’s all about going beyond your perceived limitations and becoming the best version of yourself.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with competing against someone as a challenge. But it becomes much more difficult to succeed, especially if that person knows you are competing.
If you want to work on self-esteem and confidence, you should always compete with yourself, and no one else. For example, it doesn’t matter what Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson can lift. What matters is how much you can lift today versus a month from now.
Step 4: Don’t Give Yourself Excuses
One reason why a lot of people fail challenges, including myself, is because they give themselves excuses to fail. Instead, give yourself reasons to succeed.
It’s easy to fall back on why you can’t do something, especially if it’s your first time challenging yourself. It takes a bit of practice to talk yourself out of that mindset. But when you get that positivity ball rolling, you’ll find it becomes much more difficult to stop.
This is one of the reasons why using the “buddy” system or having a strong support structure is helpful. There are all kinds of people who will be your cheerleaders. Let them.
Step 5: Use Spreadsheets or Apps to Track Progress (optional)
Apps and spreadsheets are quite useful when it comes to tracking the progress of a challenge. They give you a visual representation of your progress and will help you adjust your strategy.
Don’t get me wrong, you can totally succeed without using apps and spreadsheets. However, I’ve found them to be incredibly useful when conducting any challenge I put on myself. I’ve figured out all kinds of things to help improve my capabilities both in my personal and professional life.
For instance, I challenged myself to stick with three protein days to lose weight and reset my body. That means keeping track of eating fewer than 50 g of carbs and more proteins. To do this, I used MyFitnessPal to keep an eye on my intake.
Step 6: Gamify the Challenge (If Possible)
Gamification is when you take a mundane chore and make it fun. The idea is that people are more likely to continue doing things that entertain them. This is why a lot of businesses try to gamify workloads nowadays.
Gamification also works to keep you motivated during challenges.
The kind of “game” you play is completely up to you. But as an example, I use things like steps and total weight lifted for the day as a type of high score. Then, I work to beat that high score even if it’s just by one step or one more pound on the weight machines.
My point is that gamifying your challenge in some way vastly improves your motivation and determination to see it through. This is especially true if you’ve developed a game with it that you find extremely fun.
For me, it’s all about the spreadsheets and keeping track of my progress. But I’m also a bit of a geek.
Step 7: Celebrate Your Victories
Celebrate all of your victories regardless of size. Keep in mind that any victory is still a victory, and you should be proud of that fact.
For instance, let’s say you wanted to lose five pounds this week but you only lost two. Losing two pounds is still a win considering it still worked toward your weight loss goals. Be proud of that, learn why you didn’t lose five pounds, and then try again.
By celebrating your victories, you’re introducing positive reinforcement. And that will ultimately affect esteem and confidence. In turn, that will contribute to motivation and determination for the next challenge.
What Challenges Are You Starting Today?
As I pointed out earlier, challenges can come in all shapes and sizes. From trying to hit a certain number of words written today to pushing to lose as much weight as possible throughout the week, you can challenge yourself any time for anything.
Just remember that the underlying premise is to become better than you were yesterday because that’s all that really matters. Well, aside from making sure that it’s realistic for your needs and wants. Delusions of grandeur often have the opposite effect should you fail.
But I can tell you that pushing myself has made a vast improvement in how I view myself and my efficiency in my career. Even the ones that I appear to fail have played a role in the success that I am today.
Go beyond your perceived limitations and prove to yourself that you’re better than you are.
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