Have you ever started a health challenge with all the hopes and dreams of this being the thing to finally change your life, and a week or even 4 into it, everything falls apart?
Don’t worry, you aren’t alone in that!
Whether it’s 75 hard, a squat challenge, running challenge, diet challenge or weight loss challenge. Most people will fall off of it after a certain amount of time, or not be able to maintain it after the initial time of the challenge being over.
And that’s where this blog is going to be different!
I want to show you how you can actually finish a challenge or goal, AND stick with it to see the results long term.
But, there will be a few changes that need to be made first in order to allow this to happen.
So, let’s dive in!
This post is all about why most people fail challenges and how to actually finish one.
The Real Reason You Fail
Whatever you do to achieve the goal you set, you need to keep doing it to sustain the outcome.
AKA:
If you diet down to 1500 calories, workout for hours every day and never drink alcohol or eat out to see results, you’ll have to keep doing that.
But also DON’T do that because it’s super unhealthy and, you guessed it, not maintainable!
If something is super strict, you can do it for a short period of time.
Like prepping for a competition. Competitive athletes, no matter the sport, have off seasons where things are more relaxed.
There’s balance.
So the goal with completing a challenge is finding a way to make it work for your life long term, and letting it be flexible.
Let days be bad or not perfect.
Let life get in the way.
AND keep coming back because you genuinely want it to work for your life.
If you want a simple challenge to start and try this out, check out my 59 Days to Habit Change journal!
Start With The End Goal
Time to do some journaling! This is just to help you get clear on what it is you actually want life to look like after the challenges.
- What’s the goal at the end of a challenge? Weight loss, better routine, stronger, faster, healthier, happier, in a relationship, more money, smarter, etc.
- Why do you want to do this challenge? Does it promise the goal or life you want, is it done in a way that resonates with you, did your favorite celebrity or influencer promote it?
- What do you feel is missing in your life right now that the challenge will bring?
- Do you want to hustle, or does this challenge just promise the “missing piece” you’re looking for?
Check out Self Care Tips to Avoid Burnout
Once you can get clear on why you ACTUALLY want to do this challenge, now it’s time to make a choice.
Are you going to do it, hope for things to work out and have a plan for keeping the results once the challenge is done?
OR
Create your own “challenge” but really it’s just committing to a lifestyle change and actually seeing it through?
If you’re looking at the second option, then keep on scrolling!
Take the Experimental Approach
The experimental approach is going to be the gamechanger for you to actually see lasting results.
Because with an experiment there’s no success or failure, there’s just an outcome. And with that outcome, YOU get to decide what it is you want to do with it. Do you want to keep it, toss it, try something new? But ultimately it puts YOU back in control of your life.
So, say you want to try adding in walking outside for 30 minutes every day. You can use the Movement Experiment in my Starter Kit when you sign up for my newsletter diary to track how you’re feeling during that process and what is or isn’t working.
Because here’s the kicker, once you’re able to figure out why something does or doesn’t work for you, it’s easier to adjust and keep going.
What Can You Change NOW?
Not in your ideal world, not in the future, right now. In your messy schedule, unideal situation and current reality.
Of course we want things to change to better your life, that’s the whole reason you’re here!
But you can’t change your current reality if you don’t work with it.
So what’s doable now? I’m all about balance, but there will be some sacrifices that need to be made in order to allow more free time for things to happen.
My biggest suggestion, stop scrolling. You will find SO MUCH TIME once you let go of your phone. And of course that will take time, but it’s so worth it!
Another thing that can free up time will be getting up a little earlier or staying up a little later. And you don’t need a lot of time!
Sticking with the daily 30 minute walk, that could be done in the morning or evening, OR split up into 15 minutes morning and night.
It won’t always look exactly how you want it to, but however you can start adding in the things you want in your life now, the better everything will get later on.
Slowly Add In New Standards
And from there, you start naturally deciding how life gets to be different for you.
How daily walks are non-negotiable.
That you always have your water bottle with you.
How sleep is important.
That healthy food makes you feel good and is better than a quick snack.
How hobbies outside of doom scrolling are more valuable uses of your time.
Or just how you choose to think about yourself differently.
It’s hard to get out of a rut, but by slowly adding things into your life that lead to the goals and lifestyle you want, you start to see how they really just sink in.
It’s not the challenges that bring on the healthy habits, it’s the choices you make to keep those habits even after the challenge.
And that’s why I recommend the healthy and flexible balance.
Allow Life To Happen
And the biggest thing with making this last long term, is to not force it to fit inside a perfect bubble where you tick off all your “to-do’s” each day in order to feel good.
I started running outside again and it hasn’t been smooth sailing.
The shoes I have are old and even though I workout and walk daily, the running isn’t good for my shins and I’ve had to test different things out to help.
Right now I’ll be testing out better shoes (don’t get the cheap ones) and see if that helps me feel like my shins aren’t being ripped from my body.
But these runs haven’t been perfect or according to plan at all. As I’m writing this blog even, I had to skip a whole round of running just to give my shins a break.
And guess what? That wasn’t a loss for me, it was a success!
Because I don’t need things to go perfectly to plan, I’m able to allow adjustments to happen.
The reason you fail is because there are rules to follow and life doesn’t always adhere to the rules you set. If anything, it’s going to laugh at you for them.
So take it as a goal, and then set a backup plan and then a bare minimum to survive for the day.
That’s my biggest recommendation for you!
This post was all about why most people fail challenges and how to actually finish one.
Hopefully this blog post helped you feel a little less alone when it comes to seeing everyone doing challenges and feeling accomplished, only to check back in and see that they’ve fallen off.
It’s time to set your own rules on what you do and don’t want life to look like, what you’d like to focus on, and slowly letting it happen for you.
You can check out all the videos I recommended and more on my YouTube Channel.
Otherwise, the blog post I’d recommend from here would be:
Self Care Tips to Avoid Burnout
And then the journal that would also help would be:
59 Days to Habit Change
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