I love daily challenges, this is why I've participated in at least two 100 days of coding challenges and currently the hallelujah challenge. There is a sense of satisfaction I get when I tick each day off knowing that I was able to show up for it and that this count down is a marker that shows some proof of work. With every challenge I'm able to complete in the timeframe specified, I feel more confident that this sort of thing is doable. That's really how it works.
If you learn how to dedicate an hour each day to Bible reading and meditation, you might wonder if you can do two hours. If you try that and realize that two hours is really not as long as you thought, you might want to stretch it even more to three hours and so on. That's how endurance is built and then people wonder how anyone can play an instrument for five hours or can stand on their feet all day, everyday or can do anything that a lack of practice and consistent effort is unable to achieve. It is not by wishful thinking or because anyone is built to do them. With enough desire for the activity, anyone can.
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I've heard people tell me when I start some challenge that they don't have that kind of ability, that they 'know themselves' too well to know it's just not going to happen. I'm astonished by that defeatist approach to an activity you've not even tried yet and I've had this to say:
"If you break your task into little chunks of time, say a minute, ten minutes or an hour and at the end of it, you repeat the process, you can do anything. "
The cool thing about this habit building hack is that the more time you spend on an activity, the less resistance your mind and body have towards it. At a certain point, you will feel uncomfortable if you do not do those things. Your body will be calling you, reminding you to engage in the activity. And if you're engaging in something profitable, this almost addictive behaviour will be beneficial to you. It will become second nature.
So the first steps really are in deciding if the thing you want to participate in is worth it. When I hear people give so many excuses about something they can't do, I know that that thing is really not a priority to them. I can say this because I am using myself too as an example. People will sacrifice anything for what they consider important. There is no need to argue or convince anyone of anything because at the heart of it, people are self seeking. What's in it for me? is a question we silently ask ourselves when we consider expenses such as time we need to give out to people, attention and focus. If we are not bothered enough to exercise daily because we think we're in good shape as it is, we're not going to do anything about it. Here's an example : If we are teased and feel our self worth diminish in our eyes because of weight, we will become obsessed and set losing weight as a goal.
After becoming thoroughly convinced about our motivations, we can then start with the one hour rule. This is of course flexible because not every activity requires completion in 20 hours. You might have to do a certain thing 15 minutes a day and that's fine if those are the unique specifications of that activity. You might in such a case break it down into a 5 min interval activity. That's doable. Then the next 5 mins and so on.
I hope I've been able to encourage someone out there who thinks they can't do something because they see that they need to invest 6 months into it.
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