Motivation Monday: The 7 Day Challenge

Seven days ago today I embarked on mini journey that I will call the 7 day challenge.  Some of you might be familiar with 30 day challenges where one commits to doing (or going without) something for a full 30 days.  I've yet to complete a successful 30 day challenge so I did the next best thing.

For the past 7 days, I made the commitment to conduct some form of exercise on a daily basis.  After sharing my last fitness inspiration post, I thought I'd try to live the life of someone who works out every day.  See what it feels like and, best of all, receive some of the benefits.  If the challenge was completed successfully, perhaps I could find a way to make that action a permanent part of my life or, at the very least, I could continue on to a second 7 day challenge.

I chose daily exercise as my first experiment because it seems like I could always find an excuse not to work out.  "I don't have time." "The gym is too far." "I worked out yesterday."  "I'll do it tomorrow."  "It's kinda late."  All of those excuses took on a life of their own and soon my body and health began to show signs of my decisions.  This week was the week of zero excuses. Nothing could get in the way of me achieving my goal of 7 days of consistent exercise.  Heck, I even worked out twice in one day.  Twice in a day!!!

I didn't loose a ton of weight in 7 says, and although I do see some signs of my hard work, my body didn't transform in a week's time.  But what I got was even better than all of that.  I now can confidently operate with no excuses when it comes to my workout habits (or any other habit for that matter).  If ever I feel like it's too late to work out, I'll think about Wednesday night when I walked in the door at 9:30 pm after a 12 hour day, immediately changed into my workout clothes and completed a 30 minute workout at home.  No longer will I look at someone who has the discipline to consistently work out and think "how does she do that?"  I have been given a glimpse of that lifestyle and can choose to continue cultivating the habit if I chose.

I'm loving this seven day challenge thing.  Now that I completed one round, I'm ready to keep it going.  Next on my list is a 7 day scalp massage and a meditation challenge. My mind is brewing up countless seven day challenge experiments. I encourage challenge you to try this for yourselves.  If I would have "failed" at my attempt to work out 7 days, chances are, I'd still work out more often last week than I would have normally so, technically, there's no downside to this experiment.


Have you every tried a 7 day or 30 day challenge?  Who's ready to get started?