Weekly Challenges: The Good, Bad, and Ugly Truth
Here’s What Happened (HWH) Series
We all have goals. We start full of energy, tell everyone, write about it and, hopefully, the drive doesn’t fade.
But sadly, we know, many times it does.
There are things we want to achieve: lose weight, get fit, write consistently, move to a new country, earn more money …
The list goes on. We know the drill.
The Idea …
I’ve been there too. Too many times to be proud of. Time to shake off the shackles and commit.
Many times I commit to something privately. Then, if I fail, no-one knows. And nothing changes.
This time, you all know, my wife knows and my colleagues will know, especially in week four, as morning coffee walks are a ritual at work.
“Here’s What Happened (HWH)” will be a series of articles about my experience of trying something new for one full week.
Because I know it can be hard to continue, I’ve decided to do exactly that over the next few weeks. For one week, I’m intentionally going to start something, full of energy, tell everyone (i.e. you!) and then see if it fades. If it does after a week, that will be okay. The goal is one week.
The week is defind as — Sunday to Saturday (7 days)
The Plan …
🥓 🍳Week 1: Meat n eggs, 50 push ups* per day — starting tomorrow, February 26, 2023.
🏃♂️ Week 2: Run at least 5km per day in one run.
🍽️ Week 3: Intermittent Fast — 16:8
☕️ Week 4: No coffee (incl. decaf) — this will be the hardest week by far!
The Outcomes …
At the moment, the main outcome I’m after is … discovery. What do I discover about myself in pursuing each activity?
- What do I find hard, if anything?
- Will I want to give up?
- Will I regret this? 😬
- Will it be a walk in the park? (week four won’t be! )
- How will I feel? I’ve had keto flu before so I may experience that in week one.
- Will I find this empowering and enabling?
- Will I want to continue the activity after the week?
The Reality …
The reality is, if we want to get better we need to start. And We need to start somewhere. But giving up coffee for a day, while a start, it doesn’t really require real grit or perseverance (some would argue it definitely does!).
A week is a little different. The week will have its ups and downs in other areas which may make you feel like you deserve a break … from your commitment. But this time, you stick to the commitment and you prove something to yourself.
Over to you
- Have you done this, either for a week, or longer?
- What activity did you try/test?
- What was your experience?
- Can I asked what you learnt about yourself?
Some details
- Push ups will be 5 sets of 10 deficit push ups across the whole day, not in one go or at one particular time of the day.
- Updates will be every other day, I’m sure no-one is interested in a daily update of how I’m feeling!
- Each update will cover the good, the bad and the ugly — should be fun! 😎
Thank you for reading! 😊
My purpose in writing on Medium:
- Personal Development — writing helps me articulate my own thinking. I find trying to create an “argument” for a perspective on paper, quite revealing and at times challenging and I can be more critical of my own thoughts. I frequently find myself thinking: “Why DO I think this?”
- Developing Others — to help people make better choices by helping them think critically and realise their potential. We are often blinded by beliefs and thinking given to us by others.
