Documenting my life

Tag: habits

The 100 day challenge – end 2022 with a bang

There are 100 days left in 2022. How are you doing? If there is something you wanted to accomplish this year, but haven’t gotten round to it, this is your reminder that it’s not too late: you have exactly 100 days before the end of the year. 

What could you do in 100 days?

100 days is a great timeframe to achieve significant goals. You can go from being a literal couch potato to being able to run 5K easily (you can read my week by week experience including setbacks, learnings and tips, here). You can start a blog, finally get your business up and running. What would your life look like in a 100 days, if you committed to doing a 15 minute workout every day? Or if you did the 5 minute journal daily and set the main priorities for the day, then followed through and reflected on what you could have done better? What would happen if you stopped being on your phone from 9 pm and read a book or picked up another hobby instead? Maybe you want to use these 100 days to go to bed one hour earlier or have an energizing morning routine. 

Why 100?

A hundred days is a great milestone for any habit or activity you want to do regularly. It’s enough time to make a significant impact, but it is also doable, a challenge you can take on, knowing it can be completed successfully. It will allow you to say goodbye to 2022 with a bang, proud of having achieved something cool in a short amount of time!

Focus on one thing

What is the one thing that would have the highest impact?

Focus on that, let that be your one priority. Sure, you can have multiple goals and other things you want to improve, but it’s important to define the one that is the most important and impactful. On the days when you will be tired, busy, or something else gets in the way, being able to know what to focus on, while dropping the other tasks, will allow you to maintain momentum


Find something you are passionate about, and make it measurable

This point is self explanatory, but it’s obviously important to set yourself an inspiring challenge. Pick something you really want to do, something you know will help you moving forward and something you will be proud to have accomplished. Take some time to reflect on why this goal is important to you and how it will benefit you. 

The other important point to consider is how you define the goal. Wanting to eat healthy or exercise more are great things to strive for, but it is difficult to know exactly what to do and it is not easy to figure out if you have done it or not. Instead, a measurable goal, like “go to the gym three times a week, for 30 minutes minimum” is a clear goal, that will take away the stress of figuring out what to do, and allows you to focus on actually doing the thing. And you will be able to know if you have done it or not, with no doubt

Track and review

As with many things, tracking will help you see two things.

  • 100 days is a finite and relatively short amount of time
  • You have already accomplished your goal for x many days and you can be proud of that.

Tracking will also come in useful when you do your weekly review, to know what went to plan and why something might not have gone as you had imagined. This will allow you to get curious and brainstorm how you can improve the following week.

If you liked this article, please sign up to the newsletter for monthly round ups and extra interesting snippets, and follow lauraslearnings on twitter to be updated on the latest post. 🙂

If you decide to take on this 100 day challenge, I’d love to know what your goal is, please leave it in the comments below!

The power of consistency and envy

The story

The setup

During the first lockdown, around May of 2020, I had signed up for the Couch to 5K program. A friend had done the same, she’d started one month before me, so she was slightly ahead of me and would give me tips. I would ask her about her progress as it was inspiring and motivating.

The progress

She kept running. She injured herself around October 2020, but didn’t use that as an excuse and started running again as soon as she was feeling better.

I went on holiday in August and took a break, then I moved and fell out of my routine. When I thought of restarting, I felt lazy and I new it would be uncomfortable to begin with, so I basically stopped running. I had never got to 5K.

The last time I heard from her, around January 2021, she was running 7/10K, if I remember correctly. At the time it was a very big achievement and something to celebrate, I was so happy for her!

I did feel a bit envious and wondered if I could have done the same or how long would it take me to get to that point, now, but I let the thought go and moved on.

The surprise

We didn’t keep in touch, it had been a year. I stumble upon an online video that describes her experience in running an ultra-marathon trail in September 2021. Almost 60 km!! Running.l I was so amazed and impressed – I texted her, hoping it wasn’t too weird, after one year. I just had to congratulate myself

The takeaways

This was a great reminder about the power of consistency. We started at the same time, I have finally restarted running (thanks to the couch to 5K program) and can just about run 20 mins at the moment of writing this. My friend ran 60K.

Envy, the good kind

Brené Brown talks about envy in her book Atlas of the Heart. In this article, I review the book and share my thoughts. One of the points that stood out was the difference between good and negative envy.

Good envy will show you what is possible and will inspire you to act. Seeing that another person has something you want will help you understand your wants and dreams better. By feeling envious, you can dig deeper to figure out why you feel that way and what exactly is the cause. Ask yourself: what do you envy? What about it is something you wish you had?

What do I envy?

In my case, I don’t think I will ever run an ultra marathon.

What I admire and strive to achieve is the level of consistency and constant showing up, even when things don’t go as planned. Being able to put in the effort day in and day out, when it’s raining or snowing or too hot to even walk comfortably outside. Be willing to feel uncomfortable, especially after having to take a break from running.

Crucial caveat

Of course, we have to compromise some things in our lives and I am happy with my personal achievements and progress.

I am proud of showing up consistently and striving to feel uncomfortable in order to grow in other areas of my life. I am definitely focused on improving myself and setting goals for myself and I thrive off of big and small steps towards them.

While my friend was training and running, I spent countless hours doing and learning about improv, I launched this blog and kept up with one or two weekly posts for three months and made significant improvements in other areas, which make me really excited and proud. And sometimes we just need to rest and focus on recharging and that’s ok (and should be encouraged morel).

Final thougths

Seeing this friend achieve such a huge accomplishment was an extraordinary example of the power of consistency. It was a great reminder of the importance of health and fitness, as well as the enjoyment exercise can bring.

It reminded me of this image by James Clear [full article here]. He writes: “Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more”

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