A fewyearsago I felt like I was stuck in a rut So I decided to follow in the footsteps of the great american philosopher Morgan Spurlock and try something new for thirty days The idea is actually pretty simply think about something you have always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next thirty days It turns out thirty days is just about the right amount of time to add a new habit or subtract a habit like watching the news from your life There’s a few things I learned while doing these thirty day challenges The first was instead of the months flying by forgotten the time was much more memorable This was part of a challenge I did to take a picture everyday for a month and I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing that day I also noticed that as I started to do more and harder thirty day challenges my confidence grew I went from desk dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guy who bikes to work for fun Even last year I ended up hiking up mount Kilimanjaro the highest mountain in Africa I would never have been that adventurous before I started my thirty day challenges I also figured out that if you really want something bad enough you can do anything for thirty days Have you ever wanted to write a novel every November tens of thousands of people try to write their own fifty thousand word novel from scratch in thirty days It turns out all you have to do is write sixteen hundred and sixty-seven words a day for a month so I did By the way the secret is to not to go to sleep until you’ve written your words for the day You might be sleep deprived but you’ll finish your novel now is my book the next great American novel No I wrote it in a month it’s awful but for the rest of my life if I meet John Hodgman at a ted party I don’t have to say “I’m a computer scientist” no no if I want to I can say “I’m a novelist .” So here’s one last thing I’d like to mention I learned that when I made small sustainable challenges things I could keep doing they were more likely to stick There’s nothing wrong with big crazy challenges in fact they’re a ton of fun but there less likely to stick when I gave up sugar for thirty days day thirty-one looked like this Ha ha ha ha ha So here’s my question to you what are you waiting for I guarantee you the next thirty days are going to pass whether you like it or not so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next thirty days thanks
