The CHALLENGE Challenge

A little over a month ago, I started a Facebook Group called The CHALLENGE Challenge.

Here’s part of the description…

“Challenges are what makes life interesting; Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

What’s calling out to you? What, if you did it for 30 or 60 or 100 days or til the first of the year, would rock your world, grow your soul, and create change in your life?

It was exciting when people began signing up and fun seeing the variety in the challenges people took on. I love the interaction between group members, encouraging and supporting each other.

Personally, I took on a 30 day challenge to write every day. Blogging, poetry, whatever. My challenge was to show up at the page or computer screen for 30 consecutive days and write something. Anything.

Writing is one of my passions but I often find myself in resistance to getting started. Though once I do, I usually end up settling into a wonderful flow. My intention was to jump start my writing, encourage my creative juices to flow more regularly, and possibly create a new habit. I also just wanted to have some fun with it and the challenge part and doing it as part of a group, sounded like fun.

I completed the challenge a few days ago. Perfectly imperfectly. I wrote for 26 out of 30 days. YAY!

I noticed:

~varying degrees of enthusiasm and resistance to showing up to write

~I love being in the flow of writing

~I have trouble pulling myself away from writing once I am in the flow

~I can easily distract myself during the first few minutes of writing especially if I am at my computer

~After a few days, I completely forgot that part of my challenge was to share my writing with at least one person each day. Turns out that piece of my challenge didn’t resonate with me.

~I felt/feel really good about completing the challenge

~I even feel good about not reaching 30 out of 30

~I felt relief that the 30 days ended and I didn’t “have” to write anymore

~At the same time, I considered extending it for another 30 days so I still “had” to write.

I learned:

~I find challenges really fun and exciting in the first few days and then I begin to resent my commitment to play.

~Challenges DO help me jump start myself to take the action. It’s action I want to take, but may tend to avoid. (I don’t quite understand that phenomena).

~Small is as satisfying as large and gives me almost the same feeling of accomplishment. Taking 5 minutes to write a silly poem charged me as much as spending a long time on a blog post. Creativity is juicy and expansive no matter the size.

~There is a bit of a boomerang effect to a 30 day challenge in that on day 31, rather than having the momentum and flow of a habit (daily writing), I felt relief that I wasn’t requiring myself to write every day after 30 days. Hmmm. But then very quickly (within a couple of days) I began to miss it. Hmmm.

~I put a certain amount of pressure on myself even when playing a game created by me, for me, to support me. I get serious, rather than having fun with it.

~It was easy to get back on track after missing a day or two. Getting off track, not writing every day, even though that was my challenge, didn’t completely derail me. I got right back in the driver’s seat and actually felt refreshed.

Insights:

~I’m a writer. I know, duh. But I am feeling it and seeing it in a new way.

~Writing is part of my life fuel. It makes my soul happy.

~It doesn’t serve me to think I need to write every day.

~And, it DOES serve me to show up in any and every way possible to write as often as I choose.

PS I want to keep playing. So started a new 30 day challenge relating to…… food 

New members always welcome in the facebook group The CHALLENGE challenge.