30 Day Trials
30 Day Trials, a simple concept. You pick a habit you want to start (jogging) or one you’d like to stop (drinking alcohol) and focus on making it a reality for the next 30 days. The habit doesn’t have to be some huge undertaking, it could be as simple as making your bed everyday.
30 Day trials are great for building habits because you can focus on one change. When you try to change everything about your life overnight you often fail miserably, get discouraged and forget about it, wondering why you bothered in the first place (guilty as charged 
). By focusing on one habit at a time you make it easier to succeed, creating positive momentum to build on.
Another reason 30 day trials work well is because of the small commitment. 30 days, no big deal, It’s not like you’re going to do it everyday for the rest of your life. You’re just tryin’ it out. Temporary change is easier to wrap your head around then permanent change.
There’s already been awesome articles written on 30 Day Trials so here’s the links.
30 Days to Success
The Beginners Guide to the 30 Day Trial
ZenHabits.net
December Trial
I like to do a trial at the beginning of every month to build new habits and trash old ones. Starting December 1st, I’ll be blogging my latest trial.
I’m not going to update daily, but I’ll make a post on my progress every fifth day, recapping the previous five days.
December’s trial will be 30 days of exercise, so for the month of December I’ll exercise everyday for 25 consecutive minutes.
In high school, (doesn’t that sound like something you’re only supposed say when you’re over 40?) I exercised at least a half hour per day, running on the cross country and track teams. Now, I go through spurts where I’ll exercise everyday for two weeks and then not again for the next three or one day of exercise four days of none, so this for me this challenge is about making exercise a consistent daily habit again.
I decided on 25 minutes because 20 minutes seemed too easy, but 30 seemed like a big commitment, 25 is an adequate challenge.
I’m trying to build a habit of getting some sort of exercise every single day, running, basketball, body weight exercises, basically anything that gets me moving. I’m being flexible because the most important thing to me is consistency, not the results of the actual exercise. If I were training for an event like a 5K, I’d focus on the exercise itself, but this is about the habit.
December 1st is Day One.
Give it a try? It’s only 30 days…
I welcome anyone who wants to participate or start a trial of their own, just post a comment stating your trial and post your updates in the comments every fifth day when I post mine.
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