Kevin Southworth

30 Days Of Motivation - The Cunning Plan

Thursday, January 31, 2008 @ 11:32 PM :: 371 Views :: 5 Comments ::
Categories: 30 Days Of Motivation

Starting Monday, February 4th I will be attempting to adopt a new philosophy for my personal goal setting/achievement, which I''m going to call 30 Days Of Motivation.  Steve Pavlina has a great blog post on this strategy called 30 Days to Success that is a great read, but the basic idea is to set a few personal goals for myself and really commit to them for 30 days in a row.  My friend and I have discussed this strategy for goal-setting a few times and I thought this time I'd actually write some things down to formalize it a bit and then actually give it a try and see how it goes.

My Proposed Strategy:

• Figure out a few goals you think you can commit to for 30 days (I'm thinking two at the most for the first round)
  • Something you can assess each day works best, such as:
    • No Fast Food (each day you can easily say "yes" or "no" to this one)
    • Wake Up at 5:30 AM (again, an easy one to verify each day)
• Write down your goals somewhere you will see them every day
  • I'm going to write mine on some sticky notes and post them on my bathroom mirror
  • I'm also going to blog them on this website, hopefully by doing that it will help to reinforce them in my brain
• Mark the date on your calendar 30 days from today (or whenever you're going to start)
• This is the Motivation part, do your best to stick to your 1 or 2 goals every day.  Some days it will be very tough, on those days just tell yourself that you only have to last another X days until the 30 day mark.  It's all about mental toughness!  Whatever you do, do not skip a day!
• At the end of each day, place a check mark next to each goal that you achieved that day, or make an Excel spreadsheet if you like, whatever works for you.  This will server as your running total of progress for the 30 day cycle.
• When you hit that 30 day mark, look back at your progress sheet and hopefully you'll see a lot of check marks!
• Now it's time to assess and reload each of the goals you attempted. For each goal you can:
  • Modify the goal and add it to your next 30-day list (if you didn't achieve it this time)
  • Keep the goal and add it to your next 30-day list (you achieved it, but you still need the conscious motivation to keep it up)
  • Remove the goal and replace it with a new one
  • Remove the goal from the 30-day list and make it a part of your everyday life!  For most goals, this is of course the most desirable outcome!
• Rinse and Repeat for the next 30 days

The Reasoning:

The 30 Days of Motivation is a strategy to help motivate myself to achieve short-term goals by helping me to really focus intensely on those 1 or 2 goals each day for 30 days.  The idea is to choose goals that will (hopefully) cause a lifestyle change on a gradual basis.  For example, I have a lot of goals relating to self-improvement that I want to achieve but I have so many of them that I find it hard to focus on any of them individually, which means I don't focus on any of them!  I think if I can commit to just 1 or 2 things each day that by the end of the 30-day period I will have "tricked" myself into behaving a certain way and these new behaviors will just become part of my lifestyle.  Once/if that happens, then I can move on to another 1 or 2 goals and continue on my path of self improvement 30 days at a time.  Ok, this is starting to sound a little too psychological, so I'll end with my current list of self-improvement goals that I hope to start chipping away at 30 days at a time.

Candidates for some of my 30-day lists:

• No Fast Food
• Fast food at most once per week (the "no fast food" one might be too hard right off the bat!)
• Wake up at 5:30 AM every day (including weekends!)
• No regular pop (drink diet pop instead)
• Eat breakfast every morning
• Read a book for at least 30 minutes a day (probably at bedtime)
• Eat something "green" as part of 2 out of 3 daily meals (you know, healthy stuff)
• Have at least 1 piece of fruit in 2 out of 3 daily meals
• Have at least 1 vegetable in 2 out of 3 daily meals
• Exercise at least 30 minutes each day
• Drink at least 1 full glass of water each day
• Write a blog post once per week