Anatomy of a 30-day wellness project
How it goes.
One of my favorite things to do, to get things done, is to launch 30 day projects. This allows you to grab a finite set of near term goals and take a focused crack at them. The short time frame of the projects allows you to focus on some specific deliverable or behavior in a really easy-to-understand way.
A 30 day project is also small enough to be almost risk free. It’s so much easier mentally to move forward with a small, rapid project than to bite off something long term and big in scope. It’s just more manageable. It allows you to produce meaningful results and then iterate.
I actually stole this idea from the software development gurus. It is a form of rapid development.
What are some examples when applied to your or my everyday life?
- Get up at 5 AM every day for 30 days
- Eat vegan for 30 days
- Write a blog post a day for 30 days
- Do a video post for 30 days straight
- Stop drinking (or any other bad habit) for 30 days
- Call 50 prospects a day for 30 days
- Walk at lunch every day for 30 days
- Connect with 10 new professional contacts on LinkedIn every day for 30 days
- Meditate every morning for 30 days
You get the idea. The opportunities are nearly limitless. If there is a bad habit you want to break, a project you want to deliver or a self-improvement goal you want to reach – the 30 day project can get you there.
Use a 30 day project to kick bad habits
For the bad habit cessation projects the 30 day format is easier because you are not saying “I’ll never do this again…” you are saying “Hey, anyone can hold out for 30 days!” And that bypasses a lot of the resistance. Essentially it’s a form of the ‘one day at a time’ method that keeps the scope of change manageable.
It’s easier to execute socially as well because you’re not ‘changing your life’, you’re just doing a little experiment. You get the same social accountability with less emotional risk and investment. It’ gives you air support to declare your intentions. You might for example say to your significant other “My project for this month is to sort out our finances.” That takes the emotion out of it but still creates a focus and a deadline.
Using the 30 day project to get stuff done
What I like about 30 day projects is it allows me to focus on something I have “been wanting to get around to” but haven’t had the time. Things like that book you’ve been wanting to write, or that specific improvement you’ve been looking to make to your website. I used this methodology to set up the membership option on my website that had been on my to-do list for literally 5 years.
Even if you don’t complete the project in 30 days you will make incredible, concrete progress on it. You can write a lot of words in 30 days. You can write the first draft of a book easily in 30 days. You may discover that it can’t be done, or that it is different than you thought, but that’s great too because at least it is not moldering in idea purgatory anymore.
Using the 30 day project for self-improvement initiatives
You can easily use the 30 day project for all your self-improvement intiatives. Especially those that you are having trouble gaining traction on. What are some things that you want to do more of? Commit to doing that thing every day for 30 days. Eating well, drinking water, getting up early, exercising, sleeping more, reading, writing, meditating and telling your kids you love them are all things you can do for 30 days.
The nuance or advanced tip here is to look for trigger habits and keystone habits. What are those things that if you could do them every day would have a domino effect on the other habits in your life? I find that committing to getting up early is a great keystone habit because it keeps you from doing other things at night that are non-value-added habits.
What are those keystone habits for you? Midnight snacking? Watching TV until midnight? What one or two things can you focus on for 30 days that will positively impact the rest of your life? Pick one and do it for 30 days.
What to expect in a 30 day project and how to survive the bumps!
For the first couple days you should have no problem executing your 30 day plan. Just allocate a set amount of time for that thing you have committed to do. In the first couple days you have the excitement and momentum of a new project.
As you near the end of your first week, depending on the habit you are dealing with, things will get hard. Your body will fight back. Your brain will come up with 1,000 reasons why what you’re doing is stupid and “it would be ok to skip just one day, right?” This is where you have to have courage and strength and stick to the plan. Don’t over think it. Just do it.
That period from 7-14 days may be a new slice of hell for you. You’ve totally lost the momentum of the project and you are exhausted from your body, mind and even your community trying to derail your commitment to the project. But, it is only 30 days. Stay with it. One day at a time.
What if I fall off the wagon? If you miss a day or something goes wrong, give yourself a break. Make a contract with yourself ahead of time for this contingency. Make a commitment that if you do stumble, you will forgive yourself, get up and keep going. Otherwise a stumble can be fatal to your 30 day project.
One of the things that will help you stay on track is to have accountability. When I go on a 30 day clean eating project I contract my nutrition coach Rachel to watch over my shoulder. Since I know someone is watching I am far less likely to cheat. Commit to a blog post a day or a video post a day, even if no one is watching, if you know you have to report in that can keep you in line and moving forward.
Here’s the good news. Once you get past 2 weeks it gets easier. You are through the normalization process and your body and mind have figured out a new habit – a new way of being. Depending on the type of 30 day initiative, you are starting to see some substantial results at this point and that is a great positive motivator. You’ve got momentum now, baby!
You can still get tripped up but there isn’t that incessant feeling of being out of sorts that dogs you for the first couple weeks. You’ve normalized the habit. The end is in sight. You can do it now. It’s all downhill from here.
Your 30 days are up. What now?
Many people just keep going. I’ve seen running streaks start this way. The new habit you have cultivated may have taken root and you can declare success and just keep doing it.
The caution here is that with some things, like bad food, cigarettes and alcohol you can drop right back into the bad habits very quickly – you can get right back on that horse and it doesn’t take 30 days. I’ll leave that up to you. You know what those things are for you and you’ll have to figure out how to keep the ground you’ve won in the 30 days.
A great way to push forward is to use the success of your 30 day project to launch your next 30 day project. Maybe it’s editing that book you just wrote a draft of. You now know you have the power to change things. What’s the next thing on the list you want to change, or accomplish or bring into your life? I don’t know about you, but my list is infinitely long. There is always a next thing.
If the project didn’t go so well you can look back at what you learned and use that to launch the next iteration. As the Gurus say “there is no such thing as failure only learning experiences”. If you look at it that way the sky is the limit for your 30 day project calendar.
I think the most important take away for me in these 30 day projects is that it makes these initiatives into games. These are games I can play and games I can win. I love that.
What are you working on for the next 30 days? What can you learn? What can you play at?