Twelve 30-Day Challenges
How to develop new habits and improve
yourself in the next 12 months
Priit Kallas, fixwillpower.com

Willpower
Willpower is the foundation of your achievements. It
takes 10,000 hours to master something. For this you
need willpower.
Fortunately willpower is like a muscle, if you train it it will
get stronger. It takes on average 66 days to make a
habit automatic, but you get really big increases in the
first 30 days. I put the two together and selected 12
habits I would like to have and are general enough for
others to try.
Every 30 days you will start a new willpower challenge
and by the end of the 30 day period you will evaluate if
you want to continue with the forming of this habit or you
will drop it and treat it just as a willpower exercise.
I strongly suggest you select challenges you want to
keep. You will be more motivated by that.
Read the full blog post

Become an
early riser
Set your alarm 3 minutes earlier
every day. By the end of the 30
days you will be waking up 90
minutes earlier. You need 7-8
hour of sleep so adjust your
bedtime accordingly.

Exercise
daily
Beginners: Start with
10 minute walks. Add just one
minute every day and you will get to
40 minute walks by the end of the challenge.
Others: Add 40 minute walk to your rest days.

Meditate
Start with the 5 minute
sessions and bring them
up to 10 or 15 minutes by
the end of the 30 day
challenge.
[More in the blog post]

No distractions
Phone in silent mode.
Answer the phone if you
don’t have any other
important business at hand.
Don’t answer a phone when
you are talking with
someone. Disable email
notifications. Set 2 or 3
times in a day to work with
email. Empty email every
day. Turn off instant
messaging or use do not
disturb mode.

Write
every day
Beginners: set your goal at 1,000
characters, this should take you 20-45
minutes (with time to think).
Others: set a goal to increase the
volume and consistency.

Generate
IDEAS
Come up with 30 ideas.
Start with the topics for the
entire challenge. Consider
that it will take most of us 1
to 2 hours to come up with
30 ideas on any topic.

Talk to
strangers
Get rid of the social
awkwardness that may
hold you back. Ask for
directions or time. Move
on to practical stuff.
Cashier in the store,
fellow commuter in
subway, stranger at the
party or in school.
Ask attractive members of
the opposite sex for
phone numbers.

Saythank you
Say specific „thank you“ to 3 people. Engage them
and say what are you thanking them for in a few
words. Thank people who are not directly
responsible for your well being.

No negative thoughts
No negative thoughts or
complaining about anything.
Avoid the urge to go all
negative about things that do
not turn out as you expected.
Take a deep breath and find
the positive angle.
Make a Pavlov’s dog out of
yourself. Every time you catch
yourself having a negative
thought pinch yourself (hard)
in some place you really don’t
like it.

No TV or
news
Find other things to do.
Read a book, write or fix a
Wikipedia article, take an
online course to learn a new
skill, spend time with your
loved ones other than on the
couch watching TV.
No news sites, no checking
Facebook every 5 minutes, no
aimless surfing either.

Be grateful
Express gratitude for 5
things in your life. Take 10
minutes before you go to
sleep to write down what
made you happy. Write a
short sentence and then
reflect on it for a minute or
two.
Acknowledging the good
things that happen to you
and being grateful will
increase your overall
happiness and goal
achievement.

Create a course and run through it in 30 days or
teach something new every day. Teach your kids,
fiends, neighbors kids, co-workers, girlfriend. It can be as simple as
teaching children to count or you might want to help out with that
quantum teleportation stuff your friend’s really not getting.
Teach
someone

A few rules
No months. You don't have to start on first day of every month.
Start whenever you like it and keep it up for at least 30 days. The
best time to start is... (wait for it)... NOW!
Less than 12 challenges. You don’t have to do them all, pick
one or three. You may try the 66 day period that the research
suggests and take 5 challenges per year.
Not only for the 30 days. Pick a challenge that you would
really like to become your automatic habit. It will be much more
rewarding this way. After the 30 day period evaluate your progress
and make a decision to keep on or move to a new challenge.
Don’t start two challenges at the same time. This is
going to set you up for failure. Try one challenge for 30 days and if
it becomes automatic enough the start a new one.
Missing a day. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t drop the challenge!
One day doesn’t mean much (but don’t make it every other day).
Illness. If you have health problems during the challenge then
put the challenge on hold. Willpower and immune system compete
for resources. Stop the challenge and restart when you get better.

Thank you for the images:
1 Untitled by elBidule
2 Pillars of stone by Jonas Hansel
3 Bringing Home Worms by Jeff Kubina
4 Leaving the scene by Hindrik Sijens
5 Meditating Hornet by Justin Hogue
6 The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions by David McCandless
7 Writing Apparatus by Kaushik Narasimhan
8 Dreamgrow Light Bulb by Peep Ploom
9 Woman with headphones listening to music by Jeffrey Chen
10 Thank You! by Vern Hart
11 Gracie today by John Curley
12 TV and your brain: Turin street art by Mermaid99
13 Happy valentines day - pink gerbera with a heart of chocolate!
by Vanessa Pike-Russell
14 Bounty Hunting School - Language Course by Stéfa
1 Climbing in Red Rocks silhouette by Carl A
2 Frog by Lawrence Whittemore
3 Dotted background by Bram Janssens

Start now!
Priit Kallas, FixWillpower.com, fix@kallas.biz