#SeptemberJanuary Challenge

One of my favorite authors, Jon Acuff, posted a free September goal-related challenge on his IG and FB accounts and through email. I saw the invitation for this challenge at least 5 times, and the premise behind it is that we don’t need to wait until January 1st and the usual New Year’s Resolutions to begin working on a goal that’s important to us. The month of September brings the start of fall and a new season, a return to a “normal” routine after summer, and that back-to-school feeling—whether you have kids in school or not, so it’s a great month to spend working on a goal. I thought about it and thought about it…

• I’m so busy! I just got new responsibilities at work, so I’m working more hours than before plus doing some regular work from time to time for another client. Plus the regular life stuff. I’m just TOO busy.
• I’m having foot surgery on the 13th, and I’m going to need to deal with healing from that AND my regular life.
• I’ve got this, and this, and this. And this. And this. And…this.
• It’s just a busy month. Maybe next month. Why do I ever think that “next month” will be less busy???
• And let’s be honest…the hardest part of beginning a goal is simply getting started. Taking that first step. The hardest.

And then I thought to myself, “If not now, then when?”

So early Friday morning (August 31st, the day the challenge sign up ended…nothing like waiting until almost the last minute!), I took the plunge and accepted the challenge because spending even 5 minutes a day on a goal gets me closer than doing nothing. Or waiting for life to slow down. Which most likely will never happen. I got my first email for the challenge early on September 1st and downloaded my chart. I love charts. And marking things off of charts.

A goal I’ve had for a while now is to write in my blog more frequently, and since I’ve only posted FIVE blog posts this entire year (obviously…that goal hasn’t been going very well), it wouldn’t take much to show an improvement, right? And by working on this post, even though I won’t post it on September 1st, I can already put a big, black, bolded X on day 1. Yay me!

One thing I love about Jon Acuff is that he speaks my language. I have all of his books, and I’ve read them all at least once. I even got to go hear him speak at a local Barnes & Noble back in January. He’s a really good guy. Family is super important to him. He’s real. He’s honest. He’s funny. He knows how to motivate and inspire me. He’s not about perfectionism, in fact, he wrote a whole book about that called Finish…which is awesome…which I’ve read twice because perfectionism is another thing I’m working on. Maybe I’ll do my own #OctoberJanuary Challenge for that one. 🤔

For this challenge, he’ll be emailing the participants every 3 days during September, and in the first email of the challenge, he talked about math: If you only fly once a year, you probably won’t have any issues. But the more often you fly, the greater the chance you’ll have issues. That’s just the cold, hard math.

It’s the same with goals, but in a different way. The more you work on a goal, even if it’s for only 5 minutes at a time, the greater the chance you’ll achieve that goal over time. That’s just the cold, hard math. And you’ll be way farther along than if you do nothing, or wait until life is less busy, or until “whatever” happens.

Makes perfect sense to me!

5 minutes a day. I can do 5 minutes a day. If I can’t do 5 minutes a day, well, I need to re-prioritize some things.

5 minutes a day x 30 days = 150 minutes or 2 1/2 hours. That will easily get me closer to nailing that goal!

If I can spend 10 minutes a day x 30 days = 300 minutes, or 5 hours. 10 minutes a day is still totally doable, but if I can only get in 5 minutes a day, I can still put a big, black, bolded X on that day. Yes, I’m totally a “marking things off of lists and charts” kind of girl!

And I spent way longer than 5 minutes on September 1st working on this blog post. Probably more like 30, maybe more, but I’m not sure because I kind of lost track of time. #nailedday1

Again, it’s all about just doing something. And I usually find that once I get started by working on just one little step towards a goal, I keep going. And I make more progress than I thought I would and definitely more progress than doing nothing.

I’ve already got big, black, bolded Xs on days 1, 2, 3, and 4, and it feels beyond amazing! I know I wouldn’t have progressed this far without this challenge, and while Jon’s #SeptemberJanuary Challenge is closed for this year, why not do your own challenge? Are you with me? What goal will you work on?

Now on to day 5.

I can already see another big, black, bolded X in my future!