About two weeks ago I started my “Watch out life, here I come!” challenge. I was totally frustrated at that time, I felt like I had lost control over my life and determined three construction sites time, health and studies as relevant areas, which I promised myself to focus on for the next 14 days, in the hope, that this would help me overcome my emotional downswing.
The challenge was a great experience and today I want to share with you the
5 benefits of taking up a challenge and blogging about it:
- You decide to take control
If you decide to rise to a challenge, you do not longer feel like a victim of your environmental influences, genes, schedules whatever; you take your life into your hands and that feels damn good! You finally become the author of the book of your future, instead of letting it being written by the circumstances around you. - You get a clear view
There is possibly rarely a person who does not think “I need to focus more on that”, “I need to work out more”, “I need to spend my time wisely” etc. at least once a day. But actually sitting down, identifying areas of frustration gives you a clear view of what needs to be done. It’s like you wipe the windshield of your car in order to know where you’re driving to, rather than trying to blink through the leafs and autumn foliage on it, hoping it’ll fly away if you speed up. What is the reason of your frustration? What is annoying you? What causes pain and insecurity? If you spell it out clearly and write it down, e.g. in a blog post, you’re more likely to remember it. And if not you can open and reread it. It stays in your mind and doesn’t fade away like just another thought you had in between being frustrated and being too caught up in the hassle of your everyday life. - You can plan your change
Having a clear view on your current situation and the triggers behind it, is essential to work out what needs to be done to attain change. If you know where you want to go and what exactly is stressing you out now, it’s a lot easier to name things that could help you with your situation. Moreover, you are prevented from complaining and cursing your destiny, you know what’s wrong and you know how to change it, which leaves no room for not doing it. - You have to evaluate your progress
Blogging about your progress is a great motivation. You know at the end of the day you’re going to have to share your progress with the world – literally! Having to lay open your successes and failures, accessible to everyone, is a great impulse, at least for me. I dread to accept my failures, I mean who feels good about telling people how they sucked at something? So you stick even more to your goals. - You know you’re not alone
Knowing you’re not the only one struggling and that there are a lot of people out there, who are dealing with the same kind of problems, heading towards the same destinations and basically knowing you’re in this together with others is extremely comforting. Via WordPress you can read about thousands of other similar journeys, you can interact with people who are facing the same problems or have successfully overcome the same hurdles. Moreover, the community is extremely supportive and I’d like to thank everyone who read, liked or commented on my posts or followed my blog and thereby was part of my journey so far. It means a lot to me and it was and still is a great motivation. High-five WordPress-friends, thanks for being there! I hope you’ll stick around :)
What I learned from the 14-day challenge:
Rome wasn’t build in one day and to reach your goals, you have to constantly work and make the necessary activities a habit. I’m a bit naïve, maybe too much of a mathematician. “If I change the variable x, y is bound to happen”, that’s what I think most of the times. But life isn’t that simple and that linear causally determined. You have to work on things, continuously and steadily for some time; you’ll have to try different ways and methods and find out what works best for you; on some days you’ll be motivated on others you won’t, but you have to promise yourself to stick to it. Every action, experience, failure makes you “THE YOU” you are right now. Be proud of it. Don’t regret it. We often get mistaken by thinking we have to work on things for some time and then we’ll get to a state of satisfaction and happiness, where we can rest and do not need to struggle or move anymore. But life is dynamic, it changes, it’s never bound to reach a point where you can lay down and just rest, unless you’re dead. Life means breathing, evolving, changing, doing, struggling, interacting, growing and enjoying day by day. Life isn’t static, its lots of motion and even more emotions.
What I also learned was that blogging everyday is tough. Hats off to you guys, who do this regularly! I had difficulties doing it although I had the 14 days of my challenge off from work!
All in all I feel happier today, than I felt when I initiated the challenge. I can look back and say, I worked constantly on what I wanted to achieve. I had a good time but the path hasn’t ended yet, not at all and I was aware of that when I took the challenge. There are more colourful paths to come, some I’ll walk easily, others I have to overcome with a lot of struggle and fighting. But I definitely won’t stop walking.
I believe every life is a painting. We are given a certain kind of paper or canvas from our ancestors, but it’s up to us to create and evolve our painting. Some prefer a simple pencil, others use oil-paint. Don’t let your painting be determined only by the colours your surroundings splash on it when walking by. Integrate them into your creativity and create your own artistic masterpiece, the way you want it. After all, YOU have to see this painting every single day of your life. It’s not important if other people like it or not, but you should be happy with it.
