I Can Do Anything for a Month... Maybe.

I am a little obsessed with personal growth, life improvement, all things moving me toward being a better person and living a better life. I've only got maybe 80 years here on earth, and I would like to make the most of it. The trouble is that it's just difficult becoming a better person. I've got lots of habits that are hard to kick. Nothing really terrible or criminal or any worse than the next guy, but lots of things that keep me at a mediocre level in many areas of my life.

I have discovered that I can get momentum up for a while but then I just wimp out.

I need to build up more self-discipline. It is a long, slow process, but I am determined to keep trying and keep pushing because I am simply not satisfied with mediocrity. So. I read about this idea of a monthly challenge, and I think it is worth trying.

The concept is simple: try something for a month.

There are two basic kinds of monthly challenges, same concept but slightly different vision. The first promotes a habit. The 30-Day Challenge at Steve Pavlina's site is a good example. This type of monthly challenge gets you to put forward enough energy for the 30 days you've committed to. You trick yourself - "it's only for 30 days" - but after those 30 days it has become a habit and you can continue it, if so desired, with much less effort.

The second kind of monthly challenge promotes a project

. NaNoWriMo is, perhaps, the best-known of these challenges. The point is to put forward as much energy as possible to complete a (large) project in 30 days. The goal is completion, not perfection. You can let other things slide a bit in order to complete the project; you can always go back and work on the details later. The month of intense effort gets you through the project without a chance to lose momentum.

The monthly challenge possibilities are endless.

Whatever habit you need to establish or break is fair game. (It is easier to make a new habit than break an old one, though, so I suggest teaching yourself a new habit that will usurp the old one rather than focusing on not doing something anymore.) Monthly challenges work well because they give us a light at the end of the self-disciplined tunnel. You can endure almost anything for a certain amount of time. Telling yourself "it's only for 30 days, and then I can quit," helps you to keep moving forward on the intimidating project you need to face or the new, perhaps difficult, habit you need to establish. The beauty of the monthly challenge is what you have actually accomplished at the end of it. You have reached the 30-day goal; you are free to quit; but you find that you've completed the project, or established the habit, and now that beastie isn't staring at you from the dark corners of your closet while you try to sleep. It's been tamed.

My Monthly Challenge Muscle-Flexing Plan

So this is my plan for building self-discipline in my life: take on a different challenge every month

for the rest of this brand-new year of 2008. I did miss January, yes, but I still have 11 months left. 11 Challenges. 11 Chances to Exercise Self-Discipline until I am the Self-Disciplined Life-Improving Personally Growing Muscled Equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger. (And maybe I'll go into politics then, since Arnold did...)

I know what my first challenge for February will be: To Stick to a Morning Routine. This is not very exciting and not nearly as interesting as a lot of other Monthly Challenge Possibilities (see a list below), but I think it is key to making a whole lot of other (good) things happen consistently in my life. I am so tired of that run around, always behind, totally dragging and wondering what I've accomplished at the end of the day feeling. You know the one I mean? Perhaps you want to take on a Monthly Challenge with me. (Anyone? Hello?) I'd love to have some company, and I think we all have areas that could use some improvement.

The Rules of the Game

I had better put a few guidelines in place for myself. I am trusting that the public accountability of a Hub will be motivational for me. I will be reporting in regularly on my progress, or lack thereof. Perhaps I should offer some kind of prize to a random commenter if I fail: further motivation.

Monthly Challenges (in general):

Begin on the 1st of the month and conclude on the last day of the same month.

Must be accomplished every single day of the month unless the specific month's challenge is stated otherwise at the outset.

Previous Challenges

The Get Up Early Challenge: From Feb. 1st to Feb 28th, I challenged myself get up at the same time every morning (5 am) and establish a morning routine. Overall, a successful challenge. I got up at 5 today and wasn't even sleepy!

The Life Without a To Do List Challenge: From March 1st to March 26th, I challenged myself to live without making a to do list everyday. Any day. Successful in that I didn't make a daily to-do list, unsuccessful in that it wasn't a change I wanted to incorporate permanently, so I called it over on March 26th. It was an interesting experience and has definitely helped me be less obsessive about lists and more balanced about how much I put on them. I am relieved to be able to have one now!

And Next.... April begins tomorrow. I haven't decided on a Monthly Challenge for this beautiful, wet, Spring month yet. Let's review the possibilities: Read the rest of this entry »

Do an internet search on simple living and you'll get a host of responses, ranging from those who are committed to cutting back from five Starbucks frappuccinos per day to merely one to those who have renounced all excess, all materialism, and all technology... except for the internet. Simple Living is the catch-phrase for those motivated to escape city life and the rat race and move out to a farm in Vermont where they can raise chickens and organic rutabagas and watch the sunset from their rocking chairs on the quaintly weathered front porch. Simple Living is the promise of a thousand self-help books, a thousand time management books, a thousand personal development books, and ten thousand websites on the same subjects. Simple Living can be had, purportedly, by cutting back on time spent at work, by taking longer vacations, by thinking consciously, by practicing yoga and meditation, by cooking only organic food, by eliminating the stress-inducing people in your life, and by getting rid of clutter.

Hmm. Personally, I enjoy all the time I spend "at work" and I don't really want to cut back at all. I guess longer vacations might be nice but by the end of that two-week Christmas break I'm usually rabid for a normal, productive routine again. I'm not sure of any way to really think except consciously; isn't that the very meaning of thinking? Yoga, meditation, organic food... great things, certainly, but if simply added to an already unsimplified life they will only become so much more complication. As for eliminating the stress-inducing people in my life, I've found that they are usually the ones I am related to or close friends with. It is the very closeness and depth of the relationships that creates the opportunity for stress. I don't get stressed out about the day-to-day problems or emotional upheavals experienced by my acquaintances. It's not that I don't care, theoretically, it's just that there's not enough emotional connection to produce true empathy. But if it's my husband or sister or best friend, well, that's another story. And I'm just not willing to eliminate them for the sake of simple living. Call me crazy.

Getting rid of clutter seems like a valid concept in the search for simple living. In fact, my personal definition of simple living is just that: a life without clutter. Clutter. Unnecessary details. Extraneous, inconsequential items. "Our life is frittered away by detail...simplify, simplify," said Thoreau, the ultimate Simple Liver. He cut the clutter to a point a tad too extreme for most of us, but I respect his premise. I also respect the fact that he uses the word "fritter," which, frankly, I find rather hard to do in a serious sentence. I digress.

Clutter. Clutter is the natural enemy of simplicity. Clutter always creates a state of disorder which, in turn, creates a feeling of unrest and unfinished business, of urgency, of stress and anxiety and an overwhelming desire to just chuck it all and flee to the Bahamas. Few of us actually do chuck it all and flee to the Bahamas. If we did, we might find that simplicity after all, thanks to clutter. What happens more often, though, is that we keep slogging through the morass of clutter, hating the way we're living, dissatisfied with where we're going, frustrated by how we are forced to spend our time: on the mundane, the unimportant, the things we really don't care about.

Remember those days in school when all your homework seemed pointless? You spend a couple of hours reading the assignments, maybe drawing a map or copying equations, and the question ringing through your head the entire time was this: "How will this possibly do me any good in real life?" Do you ever feel that way now, maybe halfway through returning a phone call about a school bake-sale or organizing papers for another board meeting? Do you hear that question again but choose to ignore it? It scares you too much because you know this is real life. And if all this stuff you're doing isn't doing you any good, then your life must be pretty pointless.

Lest you despair at that last statement, ponder the mantra of Anonymous Organizations everywhere: The first step is admitting you've got a problem. You've got to admit you're overweight before you'll commit to a diet. You've got to admit your metabolism has slowed down before you'll commit to an exercise regimen. You've got to admit your finances are in bad shape before you'll commit to a budget. And you've got to admit you're crazy before you'll commit yourself to Shady Acres. Oops, that last one just slipped in there. What I meant to say was this: You've got to admit your life is cluttered before you'll commit to simplifying.

I sense the development of a brand-new slogan here: Admit and Commit. I can just picture a crowd of women, all of us with slightly unkempt hair and slightly out-dated wardrobes, holding hands and chanting together, "Admit and Commit. Admit and Commit. Admit and Commit."

Maybe we don't need to go so far as to have a Cluttered Lives Anonymous gathering (though it's probably not such a bad idea), but we do need to quit wasting time. Quit frittering life away, as our friend Thoreau says. We are dissatisfied with cluttered lives because we know we can do more and be more. Fear keeps us in the clutter. We fear change, we fear disapproval, we fear getting lost in a wilderness of the unfamiliar. So we stay where we are because we feel somewhat secure in a life that is predictable. It isn't enjoyable, maybe, or exciting, or fulfilling, or even close to what we dreamed about five or ten or twenty years ago, but we've learned what to expect from it and we know how to respond.

My challenge to all of us honorary Cluttered Lives Anonymous members is this: Admit you want something better. Then commit to one action that will bring you closer to whatever that better might be. I don't think you should quit your job, end your friendships, leave your spouse, quit talking to your kids, drop all your social activities, or throw out all your material possessions. In fact, I think the worst time to make those kind of decisions is when you are frustrated, stressed, and worn out by the accumulated details of a cluttered life. Simple Living isn't an all-or-nothing bargain. It's a series of choices that you make that takes you from spending the majority of your time on the unimportant to spending the majority of your time on the most important.

Think about one small habit you could change in your life. Think about one of those mundane details you find yourself constantly checking. You are the most qualified person to find a way to eliminate that detail. Can you incorporate it into a routine so it doesn't require continual decisions and attention? Can you eliminate it altogether? Can you delegate it? Can you shoot it out of a bazooka so you never have to think about it again? Can you make it part of something you do enjoy? Start thinking and then do it. This can be the first choice you make toward a life that is simple and fulfilling.

The Universal Questions

Who am I? What is my purpose? Why don't I feel satisfied? Is there more to life? Finding your place in the universe is a large task, but it is what we're all after in one way or another. We're either on the hunt, or wish we could be, or have been and have given up, or think maybe we have found something special, finally, but we're unsure and afraid. Some of us, very few of us, walk confidently through each day with the assurance that they are being who they are meant to be, doing the best that they can do, and using the moments as wisely as possible.

How Do You Fit in Now?

You feel misunderstood, unappreciated, insecure, sometimes alienated from the people you are closest to. You are constantly seeking but never achieving the standard you have set for yourself, overwhelmed by the tragedy in the world, and disappointed by your own failures and the failure of others.

You feel restless, bored with life, never taken seriously. You see your good ideas go to waste and are frustrated by the unwillingness of others to take a chance and have some fun. You are handicapped by your own disorganization, full of great visions but too overwhelmed by the process to ever get to the end result.

You feel impatient, demanding, and hate the unproductivity in life that you can't fix. You end up alone because you don't know how to connect with others. You are aggravated by the weakness and stupidity all around you, and though you see clearly how to correct wrongs you are frustrated because you simply cannot fix them all.

You feel apathetic, worried, indifferent to what others enthuse over, and fearful because you're so indifferent. You are unsure why other people can't just relax and get along, but you are full of unexpressed frustrations and secretly wish you could be bolder and more confrontational. You hesitate, go blank in key moments, and then regret the missed opportunities.

The Common Thread of Dissatisfaction

Which paragraph describes you? Maybe one in particular, or all of them, or a combination jumped out and you nodded to yourself as you read. The common thread of all the descriptions is this: dissatisfaction with yourself and your own part of the universe. You don't want to feel misunderstood, or bored, or unproductive, or fearful. You never intended to alienate yourself, or miss so many opportunities, or leave so many things undone, or let so many good ideas just die. But every day you see those negative moments repeated in your life and you haven't found a way to change that.

"The first step is admitting you have a problem," as we learn from Alcoholics Anonymous. Admitting dissatisfaction is the first step toward eliminating it. In yourself, the inner workings of who you are, and in your life, all those outward activities that compose your days, dissatisfaction is not really a negative thing at all; rather, it implies two very important concepts.

You and Your Life Are Worth Improving

Dissatisfaction with yourself and your life implies, first, that you and your life have a value beyond what is being given to them today from your current attitudes and habits. For example, you are dissatisfied with your relationship with your spouse. You feel like your spouse Read the rest of this entry »

Life becomes dangerous when we walk blindly in the paths others have laid out. Why? Because nobody has ever had it all figured out. But we love the ease and comfort of the familiar. It is easier to follow the well-worn groove than to make the effort to get out of it and forge ahead for ourselves.

We want others to like us, to emulate us, to approve of us, to admire our decisions, our lives. We want a pat on the head. We want the general consensus of others around us to be that we've got it pretty well figured out. So we take the paths that seem familiar because we know instinctively that, like us, others tend to approve of what is familiar without ever questioning it. We get the approval. But do we ever get the life we really want?

As women, we are especially susceptible to seeking the approval of others around us. Something in our emotional construction longs for the security of knowing we have pleased, we are approved, we have somehow met the mark. But how often do we stop to ask whose mark we are so desperately trying to meet? Is someone else's standard my only measurement for a successful life?

I seem traditional to some people, but the catch is that the traditions I uphold in my life I have chosen consciously, recognizing what they are and the value they hold for me. The traditions that have no validity and no value I choose to reject: not because I hate the past or because I want to rebel against my family legacies, but because blind adherence to tradition never improves my life. I am a stay-at-home mom and a work-from-home writer. I enjoy traditional "domestic" activities like cooking and gardening; I also love playing guitar, traveling, meeting new people, and going to skateboard parks with my husband. I spend a lot of time trying to improve how I do what I do, and probably an equal amount of time trying to improve who I am. Personal growth is a big part of life improvement for me.

Take adventures in seeking, constantly, to improve your life by questioning assumptions, examining cultural norms and traditions, and taking time to think through both your daily habits and your lifelong beliefs. Such activity is not for the faint-hearted or the close-minded. We all have strong emotional attachments to our assumptions. A defense system we don't even recognize most of the time jumps into action as soon as something dear to us is questioned, even if the questioning will lead us to a better, safer, and freer life. Questions frighten us. We have made decisions based on assumptions and we fear that questioning those assumptions will cause our lives to crumble around us.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." (Semisonic)

Without questions, without honesty, without risk, our lives will crumble. At best we will live and die in mediocrity. The atrophy of a mind and heart never fully used will cause our lives to deteriorate into something passionless, useless, and pointless. Life was not meant to be lived without purpose and freedom. It is only by asking difficult questions and seeking real wisdom that we find both purpose and freedom, and in finding them we find a passion for life.

I hope you are open-minded enough to seek more than the rut you have been walking. I hope you are willing to take risks, to ask questions, to examine your own life honestly, to put aside assumptions, to seek true value. Do you want comfort, or do you want real wisdom? Do you want familiarity, or do you want freedom?

Improving your life is more than sitting around, theorizing about the big questions in life. Our lives are composed of a collection of small things, mostly, and thinking about those small things is how we make our lives richer and better. All the little things - from how you cook a meal, or organize your desk, or shop for birthday gifts to how you implement frugality, change your morning routine, or choose what book to read next - make the big differences that take us from mediocrity to excitement.

I said before that no one has it all figured out; I certainly don't. My mission is to find out what I can and continually change and improve my life with every day. Many of the things I write about are very simple, practical applications for the daily business of life: how-tos, recipes, life hacks, tips, methods. Some are more theoretical, my own process of examining the "bigger" things in life.

Take risks. Let life be an adventure and not a drudgery. Trade in those assumptions for something real. You may walk away with the same basic lifestyle and beliefs, but they will be grounded on your own decisions, not on a past that you may or may not want to become your future. Reject the fear and the passivity and seek what is real. "Say to wisdom, 'You are my sister.'" (Proverbs 7:4)

Goals without purpose become meaningless exercises and doom you to frustration. I can set a goals in the best way with specific definitions and deadlines and hints and helps and accountability and triggers and I can still fail. Goals need to mean something because goals require change and it is our default as lazy, fearful people to resist change.

Not to get you down, but...
We need to admit that we are lazy and we are fearful. Most of what we want to accomplish in life is possible for us. Money is there to be made. Time is ours to use as we will. Relationships become what we put into them. People treat us as we allow them to. The responsibility rests on us. My life is my own and if I let you control is, it is my fault. Shame on you, certainly, for seeking to control, but a greater shame on me for victimizing myself.

Your Purpose Becomes Your Responsibility
Responsibility is part of purpose. Finding out your purpose creates an obligation upon you to fulfill that purpose. If you have value beyond today, if significance and satisfaction are possible, if you have a purpose beyond existing, then you alone are responsible for living up to that value, living in such a way as to be significant and create satisfaction by achieving your purpose. None of these things are impossible, but they require thought, commitment, effort, and diligence.

Striving for Your Purpose
If I fail to achieve my purpose, it is either because I was too afraid to find out what it was or because, upon finding out, I was too lazy to strive for it. To strive means to "endeavor with earnestness, to labor hard" and "to contend, to struggle in opposition to another." Achieving your purpose means that you must not only work for something noble and big and beyond today, but you must work against your fears, your laziness, your old habits of mediocrity, and all the voices in your society and your past that point you in an easier direction.

Refuse to Waste Your Life
It may sound like I'm taking this all a little too seriously, but wasting a life is a serious thing. That life came from somewhere and is meant to do something. I believe God gave it to you. Whether you believe the White Dolphin of the Lost Sea gave it to you or your parents were just a little thoughtless with contraceptives, you still wake up every morning with a day to fill. You can settle for meaningless mediocrity, but you don't really want to. If you do, it is only because laziness and fear have taken over and you have settled into victimization again.

Do better than be a victim for the rest of your life. Start taking control of your mind and emotions and body, one step at a time. Ignore that voice that says, "Forget this, it's a waste of time." Ignore that small, offended feeling at being called lazy and fearful. Ignore that urge to go get something to eat and settle in front of the tv. You were meant to be alive, not be a victim. Start finding your purpose.

How to Find Your Purpose

Finding your purpose is a personal exercise, and no chart or graph or checklist will really do it for you. Writing helps me, but that's because I'm a writer. I get a piece of paper and start writing down the things that matter to me. From those, there are a few that really stand out, or that are repeated (different terms or phrases, same idea). Read How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes by Steve Pavlina. Ask your friends and family what they think you are good at. This doesn't mean that is your purpose, but it gives you a starting point if you find yourself totally stuck. What do you love? What gets you enthusiastic? What could you do and never get tired of doing? What is your idea of the perfect job? How do you wish you could change the world? What would you attempt if you had unlimited resources? What would you try if you knew you could not fail?

Answer those questions honestly, and try to find the common theme. Boil it down to something clear and quick and to the core. Then hold on to it and start thinking about how that purpose translates into the life you are living now.

Self-help programs often focus on purpose, what it is, how to find your own. What isn't always said is why you need to spend time thinking about something as basic as your purpose in life.

Getting Beyond Basic

First, purpose isn't so basic. Existence is basic; survival is basic. We survive - so that we can continue to exist - largely through instinct, which is also pretty basic. On those three points, we are no different than any other species on earth, which also live by their instincts in order to survive that they (and their kind) might continue existing. Of all the species, however, we are the only one writing poetry, building skyscrapers, reading books, and engaging in all sorts of other activities that are extraneous to mere existence. Existence requires no cappuccinos, no cigarettes, no movies or tattoos or sports or orchestras. The homo sapiens prefer to do more than exist.

Seeking a Greater Purpose
Humans, in general, seek purpose beyond survival. We want to know that we mean something, that we are significant, that we have value, that we contribute something to the universe. The fact that we seek a greater purpose indicates to me that we do have one. The animal and plant worlds exist happily without questioning their purpose; dolphins chatter, birds sing, monkeys play, lions stretch and roar, cats pounce, dogs wag their tails in perfect contentment to simply be. Humans with no purpose grumble, whine, get lazy, get depressed, get into drugs and bad relationships and destructive behavior, give up, kill themselves.

Identifying Purpose Brings Satisfaction

Dissatisfaction with life as it is indicates both the value of life and the possibility for satisfaction with it. Identifying your particular purpose for life is necessary to reaching satisfaction. You cannot meaningfully improve something if you do not know why you are seeking to improve it. Neither will you reach any goals if you set them arbitrarily. You can only muster up so much motivation to push yourself toward something that isn't really significant for you. The process of improving your life can continue steadily only when you can set goals as they relate to your purpose. Goal-setting for the sake of goal-setting is a weary way to go.

Finding Your Particular Purpose
Finding your purpose is where most of us get stuck. We nod and agree that purpose is important. We recognize the desire we have for purpose. Then we pull out a piece of paper to define "my purpose in life" and either write down a trite phrase that really doesn't mean anything or stare helplessly, feeling as blank as the paper.

Perhaps you already have a clear idea of your purpose. If so, you're set to continue. If not, just make it simple: adopt as your purpose the goal of finding your purpose. A bit circular, yes, but it will be enough to keep you going for the next few steps.