100 Day Start Fast, Finish Strong Challenge Review

So I completed 'The Goal Guys' 100 Day Start Fast / Finish Strong Challenge.

I have blogged on my progress throughout the 100 day period and you can go back and see how I progressed throughout.  In this blog I'll do a quick summary of my experience.

At first blush ending the year with a 100 Day Challenge seemed like a wonderful idea.   However, in practice this is not an ideal time to do the challenge.   The main reason being Christmas.    The holiday season totally derailed both myself and my challenge buddy and I'm sure a lot of other people as well.     So much for Finishing Strong.

My other major thought about the entire experience is that they encourage you to set lofty goals.  Five of them in fact.   Any one of my lofty goals would have consumed all of my available spare time if given thier full due.  Having five to juggle was an act of insanity.   I did benefit greatly at the start from two things:  1) I had taken a month of work and used it to kickstart my goals. 2) I delegated.

Add the insanity of Christmas with gift buying, visiting relatives, planning, preparing and hosting Christmas dinners and something simply has to give.  

In the end I do consider 2 of the 5 successfully accomplished.  Which is in fact a marvelous accomplishment!  All 5 were significantly propelled forward and the timelines for the other 3 were never really realistic in the first place, however I didn't realize just how unrealistic my website goals were until I was well invested in it.

To add further insult to injury, the 100 Day Challenge gives you daily goals to work on.   Truth be told I never did a single one of them.   I was already overwhelmed with the five goals I had set, on top of my daily responsibilities.   I know Cathy did aspire to work on them but in the end, I know she wasn't very successful on that front either for the same reasons.

In retrospect I would have been better served with setting only two, maybe three major goals to work on during the challenge.   That would have allowed a lot more focus on those specific goals.   Having only two goals would also have allowed me to actually focus on the given daily goals.  Either that or 5 fairly manageable goals.

In the end, was it worth doing?

Absolutely!! 

Anything that gets you to take constant, direct and ongoing action towards your goals is worth doing.

Since it's the beginning of a new decade I was looking back and reflecting on what I have accomplished over the last decade.   Much of what went on that list was done within the last 100 days.   If I had been as focused as I was during the challenge for the rest of the decade, I would be in a very different place than I am at today.

Which is why I am doing it again!!

Yes, that's right, as of January 11th I am restarting the 100 Day Challenge.  I will repeat it two more times after that.    There are 365 days in a year and for 300 of them, I will be focused on my goals and on bettering myself.      The other 65 I'm going to screw off. lol.   Well, I'm sure I'll still be moving things forward, but I'll be doing it at a different pace.   Likely take a vacation in those pauses too.

"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

My goal in doing this is to create a lasting pattern of change.  Through continued focus and repetition I expect to be able to make some permenant changes to my habitual way of being.   Resulting in explosive growth in my life.

Ultimately, it's not what you know.  It's what you do.   As Marvel Entertainment was so fond of bashing into our heads as kids during G.I.Joe and Transformer cartoons; "Knowing is half the battle!"  Yes, but only half!  A lot of people know what they should be doing, but they are held back by their habitual way of being.   Living in their comfort zones.

2010 is my breakout year.   I will achieve substancial results this year through direct and continous action.

The 100 Day Start Fast / Finish Strong Challenge will be one of the key components to making truly life changing differences in my life.

I encourage you all to take this journey with me.   Sign up for the challenge yourself or just continue to follow my progress in this blog and it's sister website - http://www.thecuphalffull.com/

If you are considering taking the 100 Day Start Fast / Finish Strong Challenge here are my recommendations.

Remember that you only have 100 days to achieve your goals and that the rest of your life is not going to suddenly disappear while you work on them.   You can change your priorities but you likely cannot divest yourself of your other responsibilities.

Therefore either focus on only a couple of huge goals, and the daily goals or make your goals aggressive but not monstrous.   Ask yourself, "How will I find time daily to work on each of these goals?"   Be realistic about the time commitment of each.

For myself I had a fitness goal of putting on 10-15 lbs of muscle.  That required going to the gym for an hour five or six days a week.  That's already an hour out of each day and I still had four other goals to see about!!

Commiting myself to get into a relationship proved a monsterous time consumer as I spent endless hours on websites, on the phone with women and on dates, not to mention the financial reality of dating a lot of different women over a short period of time.   I probably spent three hours a day on average on this single goal.

My website goals proved far more ambitious than I had even thought.   Even delegating much of the work out, I still spent about two or three a day average, (often more) working on not only blogging, but researching, designing, marketing and building a website.   Just getting a logo alone was a massive time drain with a constant back and forth trying to get the concept I had in my head captured in an image.   

Which those three goals I already had a time investment of six to seven hours a day!   Plus my job, my kids, my regular boring life (laundry, repairs, showering, friends, etc.) there was no time left for anything else!

Most of the work that was done on my book was done by someone other than myself and thank God for that!!   However I was trying to squeeze in time for that too.

My last goal, a financial one ended up being totally reliant on my website development and my book getting published as there simply wasn't any time left to look into or work on other possibilities.

So do yourself a favour, if you're going to take on five goals, make sure you can move each of them forward meaningfully with as little as a half hour a day commitment.   That may work for some (health) but not others (relationships).  Do the math.   In 100 days at 30 minutes a day, you will spend 300 hours working on each goal.   What is a realistic goal to finish in that time?

It's okay to want to make a million dollars but unless you have some incredible gem of an idea, it won't happen in 100 days.   But you can set a goal that will help set you up to be earning a lot more than you do now.  Like finding a new job or taking a college course (which I was also doing!) or getting a business going.

Find a challenge buddy.   It was very beneficial to have someone to report too and to hold me accountable.

Be prepared for the mid-way slump.    Both Cathy and I got discouraged at the half way mark.   Mainly because you're forced to realize that you are half way to the end of your time frame but do not have your goals fifty percent completed.    This will most likely be your reality too.   Things always take longer than expected and unexpected problems are sure to arise.   Don't sweat it.  The ultimate point is that you are making your life measurably better.    Also, change can be slow but at times it can be incredibly swift.   You could come in touch with the right person, situation or opportunity to suddenly propel you forward.   You never know when those will come so just stay committed to your goal.

In the end, even if you miss your completion date it doesn't mean you failed, you just need to keep on keeping on.  In the end 100 days of action and focus can ultimately only do one thing: make your life better.

I look forward to seeing you in the circle of excellence.