30 Days Challenge
Tonight’s the night. And it’s going to happen, again and again. It has to happen. Nice night. Miami is a great town. I love the Cuban food. Pork sandwiches. My favourite. But I’m hungry for something different now.
London is a great town, too and my favourite is salt beef sandwich but it’s not the case. For a long time I don’t have the control of my life and I’ve been waiting to claim it back.
Although I love planning my days and weeks in terms of work and leisure, I usually don’t set a future date to go on a diet or to make resolutions happen. But this time, right after the new year, my wife came up with the idea to challenge herself for 3 months walking streak and I convinced her to set a shorter time and take more challenges instead. We had families and friends to visit us in January so we decided to kick-off in February, which made us talk about it everyday and want this day to come. It sounds cliche, but I feel more ready than I usually felt about such resolutions before.
We also told other people and decided to write a updates about it to see if it’ll be a motivator for us and for other people (it actually did). So here is my first 30 days challenge for February (yes, i know February have 29 days):
Get out of bed no later than 9 am:
This is the easiest among them and will help me to succeed my next challenge in March, to go to bed earlier. I usually wake up before 9 but fall asleep again while checking my emails and twitter. Which takes us to second challenge…
No social networks before 10 am:
Excluding emails, at least for this month. Checking my emails helps me to set my priorities for the day and usually 8/10 of them are from maillists that I never read. On the other hand, checking social networks in bed or when I’m walking my dog makes me feel tired when I get back to my desk. That might be a hard habit to break, but I won’t die if I fail or succeed.
Going to gym at least 4 days a week:
Ah, my never ending goal for years. I had injuries, I had too much work, I had too much to change in my life, I had places to see. It’s enough. I know the key is to set a time for it and stop what you’re doing at that time so I’ll do that. I feel much better after an hour of workout so it’s not only about losing weight, but it’s also about losing weight.
Eat clean & lose weight:
For the first time in my life, I’m over 93kg and I feel terrible about it. So it’s time to fix it. When that happened back in 2008, I lost 16kgs in 9 weeks. This time I don’t have numerical goal to reach, but I want to go until I feel good again. I don’t have a specific diet, but there are certain things to reduce/quit like bread, sweets, and…
Alcohol. No alcohol for 30 days:
This is the hardest. Not because I drink everyday, but nothing makes it better than a beer to watch a football game or feel refreshed after working hard. But I believe I have tasted enough ales and scotch in the last months and it’s a good time to take a break. And the best part? My treat will be crossing out the receipts in my cocktail books in March.
Go to a football match:
Well, the man needs some fun. It’s been more than 4 months I moved here and it’s been on my list from day one. A Premier League game would be fantastic, but I’ll prefer supporting a local club so it can be Championship or lower because Chelsea is not an option. However, making this true might cause a failure for my no alcohol challenge.
Spend at least 5 hours a week to learn something new:
Another goal I failed to make it happen for years. Most probably it will be a new design tool or about dog training, but who knows what happens next. 5 hours is an average work day of mine, so I believe it’s an ideal time to begin with.
Find new challenges for March:
No matter what you want from it, life is a challenge. Hopefully it’ll be more fun when I chose what to deal with, so I can turn 30 days challenges into a new habit.
I suppose I should be upset, even feel violated, but I’m not. No, in fact, I think this is a friendly message, like “Hey, wanna play?” and yes, I want to play. I really, really do.
So, here we go.
