Are you used to challenging yourself?
Today, I think that a single challenge can often be enough to change a person's life.
Do you find that surprising?
A little more than a year ago, I knew I didn't want to work in a design office as an engineer: spending at least 45 hours a week in an office for a good salary, which my studies could have meant for me...
It didn't inspire me.
But I also didn't know where to turn or what to do with my life...
I was frustrated that I couldn't find my "mission of life", that I didn't have the revelation that would make me say "it's okay, this is the path I want to follow!”.
I embarked on different experiments... Usually I didn't want to go through with it for fear of deceiving myself, the necessary commitment or the risk of failure. I felt like I was not living a life that lived up to my aspirations...
I had several ideas that I had been postponing for a while:
Read more books on the subjects that inspire me,
Learn how to code,
Develop my self-discipline and organization to stop procrastinating all the time,
Experiment with practices such as meditation or yoga (to name a few...)
There was a major change in my life the day I thought to myself:
"What if I tried to learn to code intensively for only a month, just to see?"
Until then, I wasn't sure I wanted to be a computer developer at all, so I didn't bother to go any further. I was still waiting to find the right way...
Once this decision was made, I knew that School 42 offered an intensive month-long entrance test, what they called a "swimming pool".
I decided to block my August and take part in this test, just to try it out, without questioning the idea of having to succeed or commit myself afterwards.
The rest of the story?
I was free from all pressures and allowed myself to give my all.
At the end of the month, I was proud of what I had done and what I had learned. The truth is, it's been a long time since I felt so proud of myself for giving the best of myself. And it was clear to me that it could continue to serve me whether I continued or not.
For the anecdote, I decided to continue learning to code in this school for a while. But that's not the point.
The most important thing is that I had just created a new reference experience. It was an experience that would later remind me that I was able to invest myself fully in one direction for a month and come out proud of myself and grown up.
In the months that followed, this confidence that I developed in fulfilling this first challenge decided me to continue in this momentum:
In October a month later, I managed to read 30 books in 30 days. I also wanted to make 30 videos but it was a bit too ambitious a goal to start with and I only focused on books after the first 10 videos. It allowed me to find the dose of inspiration I had been looking for for a while.
In January, I performed a Miracle Morning (after Hal Elrod's eponymous book) over a month: Get up early, meditate, exercise, read and write every day. It was a first step in the installation of rituals and routines that I now follow every day and which help inspire me in everyday life.
After a few months when my rhythm broke down when I started working as a full-time web developer, I finally made some adjustments to my work schedule while looking for energy. To do this, I also launched myself into a 30-day challenge in August: 30 days dedicated to raising my daily energy level.
Thanks to this challenge, I found the energy to get back on track.
So I continued with the challenge of getting into Yoga during the month of September and did 30 minutes a day, even when I had to get up in the middle of the night for that, before days started especially early: It became too important for me to go through a challenge and be proud of myself after what I had already succeeded in doing.
The next challenge was to develop my self-discipline and capacity for action by getting up every day between 6:00 a. m. and 6:30 a. m. (instead of 7:30 a. m. and 8:00 a. m.) on weekdays to free up at least one more hour in the morning. I was dedicating this hour to the most "challenging" and important task identified to advance on my current independent professional project.
Today, I have strongly developed my self-confidence and my ability to create a life that inspires me simply by seeing the progress I have made over a few months and the prospects that this opens up for me in the months to come.