You’ve made your goals for the year. If you haven’t, there is still time. Don’t worry! You can make goals at any time of the year. If you need a little inspiration, you can read this blog post about setting goals and taking action. But, what about all of those other things you plan to do, and what about the things you do have planned? Have you thought about taking a challenge? In this blog post, I talk about 10 challenges that can kickstart your year.
I recently began to love challenges. I hate quitting. So, if I decide to join a challenge, then I know I’ll be annoyed with myself if I don’t follow through. I’ve started a lot of new things in the last year, and I have realized that if I’m struggling with starting or taking the next step, then a challenge helps me get there.
January seems to be the month for challenges. I’ve already done one so far and have a few more I plan to do. Remember the vision board? I think I have a challenge in mind that covers all of the areas I created for my vision board. I may not do all of them, but I’ll keep them in the back of my mind when I need a little momentum to move me in the right direction with whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish.
Find A Challenge For You!
You’ve got your New Year’s goals set, or you’ve thought about all of the things you hope to accomplish this year. By February and March, the ideas fade or go to the wayside. Find a challenge or create your own to make sure that doesn’t happen. It’s always these little nagging things that aren’t exactly a top priority that is forgotten about. One way to get them done is a challenge.
For example, I want to declutter my house. I might challenge myself to go through each room one week at a time to get it done. Then, that goal is done and dusted, and I can move on to the next thing. You can make anything into a challenge. Turn those nagging little projects or goals into a challenge.
I describe a few challenges below, but a challenge can be anything. You can make up your own challenge that relates to something you want to do. If you want accountability, you can team up with your family or friends. There are plenty of challenges to go around online. Just pick your social media platform and follow someone that is doing what interests you.
5 Challenges You May Not Have Tried
Book Challenge
My girls have a 40 book challenge this year in school. I’m probably more excited about getting them to read 40 books this year than they are. Actually, I know I am, but it gets them reading more than they usually do. It also gets them to pick up books they may not usually find interesting. This made me think about two challenges I wouldn’t mind taking on for myself. I have a large stack of books that I’ve started and never finished. I’ve picked them up, started reading, and then put them back down and forgot about them. Anyone else a book hoarder? I find a new book that looks interesting, and then that book goes through the same process. I have done this way too many times that I want to challenge myself to finish all of those books I’ve just left hanging.
My tendencies to hoard books means that I’m always buying new books whether I read them or not. So I also have a lot of unread books hanging around my bookshelves. If my kids can read 40 books this year, why can’t I? And because it’s the two sixth graders who have the book challenge, every 250 pages they read is considered one book read. That’s a lot! 250 pages is good enough to count as one book for me too. So, I think I just might take this 40 book challenge. I got myself so psyched about reading all of these books I’ve wanted to read for years that I even made a sheet similar to the girls’ to track the books I read. You can download it for free here.
Self-Care Challenge
Self-care! What’s that? It’s something I know I don’t get enough of, but I am really striving to change that. How do you wish to take better care of yourself? Do you want to exercise more? Take baths, meditate, watch a show that YOU want to watch? I don’t care what anyone says, but that is a form of self-care. You need to let your mind have a break from all of the things that you need to do on any given day. I didn’t say binge-watch, but hey, I’m not in control of you. There are days when my body needs to just sit my butt on the couch and not do a thing. I’m not going to stare at the wall, I’m going to enjoy all these shows people are talking about on Netflix!
Anyway, self-care can be whatever you do that makes you feel good. Decide what that means for you and make a date with yourself. Since this is a challenge, make several dates and do yourself a favor and keep your word!
Start a New Hobby Challenge
I love my hobbies, but I hardly get to do them. Challenge yourself to make time to do that thing you love or want to learn to do. Your thing, not your kids’ thing. Although, if you want to involve them in it, that’s fine as long as you get to do something that interests you. So many moms get lost in their family’s lives and forget about what they like or their hopes and dreams. I fall prey to that myself.
One new hobby I’m thinking of trying is learning to play the piano again. I learned as a child but stopped and never picked it up again. And I’ve always wanted to learn another language other than learning Spanish. There are so many great programs and let us not forget You-Tube, where you can teach yourself just about anything.
Fix-It Challenge
I don’t think my husband would like this challenge, but have you ever felt like everything in your house is breaking? You fix one thing and then before you know it, something else breaks. You can’t possibly fix it all at once, mainly because of the amount of money it would cost, so you find a quick fix. Also known as putting a bandaid on it. In no time, bandaids are popping off all over the place and it is time to fix it for real. Can you tell that there are quite a few things that need a “real fix” in my house?
Well, my fix-it challenge would challenge us. I say us because I mean my husband too. There’s no way I know how to fix all the house stuff, but I can do a lot of helping, or lifting the phone and finally call someone when we can’t do it ourselves. Anyway, my thought is to make a list of all of the things that need fixing and give it a timeline to get it done. This is a chance to get all of those pesky house projects under control and out of the way.
Outdoor Challenge
If you’ve read some of my activity blog posts in the past, you’ve read about my involvement with Tinkergarten. If you don’t know about Tinkergarten you can find out more here. They hold classes and lessons where children learn through outdoor play. Since I became involved with the company, I’ve noticed how much my kids and I benefit from being outdoors. I recently became aware of an outdoor challenge where you can challenge your family to get 1000 hours of outside time. You can go to their website, “1000 Hours Outside” to find out more, and choose a cute tracking sheet to track your hours.
You can also join the Facebook group where other families are sharing what they are doing to get outside. We may not reach 1000 hours, but it’ll be fun to try.
5 Popular Challenges You May Want To Try
These 5 challenges are often popular at the beginning of a new year.
- Yoga Challenge
- Exercise Challenge
- Declutter/Organize Challenge
- DIY Challenge
- Healthy Eating Challenge
These days, I bet you can find a challenge for just about anything. Whatever tickles your fancy. Are you thinking of taking on any challenges in the new year? Tell us about it in the comments. Just remember that a challenge can be done any time of year, and any time you need to kickstart yourself into accomplishing something you want to do.
As always, thank you for visiting my blog! I hope to see you back again for more of “The Adaptable Mom.”Want more Adaptable Mom blog posts? Sign up here to be alerted about new posts on the blog.