30 Day Challenges...They DO Work!

When I initially agreed to do a 30 Day Blog Challenge, I had no idea how beneficial it would be. Eleven days into the experience, I’m finding it has given me a new level of discipline and focus that has far reaching benefits.
It was during a private mastermind meeting with my clients that I first agreed to the Challenge. I was leading a discussion on the importance of short term goals to achieve specific results. The conversation geared around visibility.
As a proponent of blogging and article marketing, I invited my clients to commit to doing both for 30 days. One of my clients asked if I would be willing to commit to a 30-day blogging challenge.
“Absolutely!” was my immediate response. “I will blog Monday through Friday without fail for 30 days.”
Knowing my clients would be watching to see if I followed through, I knew it was essential for me to stay true to my agreement. I also knew there would be topics coming to surface though at the moment of making the commitment, I had no idea what they would be.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how fun the challenge has been. I’ve also been pleased with the range of topics I’m writing on.
The best part of all is this? Once the post is written, I have them posted on a few article directories. I’ve also posted the permalink from each of the posts on various social networks I am active on. This gives me more reach and benefit for my time invested in writing the posts.
Why 30 Days for a Challenge?
Actually, there is a lot of benefit to relatively short term timeframes for challenges. Rather than someone committing to “forever” or for a year at a stretch, short term challenges are much more achievable.
30 day challenges became very popular regarding health and fitness, business, and personal goals.
Plank Challenge
30 Day Plank Challenges became all the rage over the last couple of years. If you’ve never done planking, Day One is going to be rough for most people. By Day 30 you will be amazed at how strong your stomach muscles have become and how great you feel.
NOTE: Do this challenge at your own risk. You need to be in relatively good health to attempt this.
Video Challenge
Then there is the 30 Day Video Challenge. This is where you shoot one short video a day for 30 days. When done right you can get a great deal of visibility and SEO juice with this type of challenge.
The key is to make the videos short, engaging and of high value. Giving tips on a specific topic is a great way to use the video challenge.
Cleaning Challenge
30 Day Clean Out One Drawer or Closet a Day Challenge is amazing. I created this for myself in that I had a few areas in my home I wanted to get super organized. The thought of doing it all at once was rather overwhelming, but doing one thing a day was very doable. Within a short period of time I had accomplished a great deal.
Phone Calling
What about the 30 Day Calling Potential Client Challenge? This is where you set a goal for a minimum number of outbound calls you make to people in your database, those you met at networking meetings and conferences.
Imagine committing to calling five people a day for 30 days. That’s 150 people. Without a doubt you would secure business from this strategy.
If you challenge someone to make 150 calls, that can be very overwhelming. But ask them to make five calls a day; that’s very manageable.
Conclusion
Regardless of the challenge, when you stick to them, they work. It’s quite simple.
In the 11 days since I’ve been doing the Blog Challenge, I’ve found myself digging deep to come up with high value posts.
What has worked for me is to do my blog posts first thing in the morning. My mind is fresh, ideas are flowing and I’ve found that by staying the course, I have a great sense of accomplishment to start my day.
What is something you know would benefit you by committing to it for 30 days? Whether it be a change in physical activity, eating, business, your relationship or just about anything, make the commitment, stick with it and watch what happens. You’ll likely be amazed.