Munching a mammoth in 30 days?

There's that saying about 'how do you eat an elephant - bit by bit of course' and I was reminded of this in my own mentoring session with a colleague this week.   The issue was the elephant just seemed so humungously woolly mammoth sized that even eating it bit by bit seemed like too big a deal.  Funny then that an email should also pop into my inbox from the wonderful Connie Chapman from A Life Of Perfect Days inviting me to join her on a Transformational 90 day Challenge.   But somehow even 90 days seemed too long, too daunting, too overwelming.   Sound familiar? 

So bit by bit we chunked down, broke that woolly mammoth into an elephant and then into even smaller bitesize pieces and ended up with a challenging but realistically manageable 30 day challenge!  It was quite contagious and I challenged my colleague to join me in the challenge which was duly accepted!  And as I write this I am smiling as I originally typed  "I shan't reveal the details but know that the success of it will be clearly evidenced on here, on Facebook, on Twitter and ultimately in my diary!"  yet the challenge requires me to declare it!  So deep breath - 30 days to get out there in world what we do!   There - that wasn't so bad after all!

So how does a 30 day challenge hit the spot?  Well 30 days is only a month, in fact less than a month for 7 of them!  Its four and a bit weeks - hardly any time at all when you consider we're already into October 2012 and I last blogged at the end of July which seemed like just last week!  So it's not too long to fear commiting to, yet its long enough to create a habit, to bed down new patterns of behaviour and certainly long enough to start seeing results which will inspire you to continue on way past the 30 days!

A 30 day challenge is fantastic for making big changes or little tweaks - and once you start you'll start to see lots more opportunities in your life for other 30 day challenges.  And its great fun and a huge motivator to share with friends or colleagues - set up a facebook group or blog and declare your challenge publicly  to the world (or the intimacy of a secret group if more appropriate) as letting people know what you are doing holds you accountable and you may be surprised at the support you get, from unexpected places!

Not sure where to start, what to do for a 30 day challenge - pick an area of your life where you'd like to see change and identify the change you want that is realistic yet challenging within 30 days.  Think of what action(s) will start to move you towards that goal and commit to doing that action(s) for 30 days and hey presto that's your 30 day challenge!  It doesn't have to be anything big - start small for your first 30 day challenge and you know its funny how a seemingly small 30 day challenge will bring far greater positive benefits than you would ever thought possible!

Would love to hear about your 30 day challenge!