The Secret to Turning a Short-Term Challenge Into a Lifelong Habit

Hey there, Trudi here.

Since we’re kicking off our Further fitness challenge today with an exclusive presentation by Krista Stryker of 12-Minute Athlete, I thought I’d share a bit about the topic of short-term challenges and whether they actually work.

A few days before the end of January, I asked a friend if he and his wife wanted to meet for drinks. His response:

Not yet — we’re almost done with Dry January, but I’m expecting a very Wet February.

So much for dialing back his drinking habit. However, it’s not his fault — aside from a respite for his liver, a 30-day challenge is unlikely to move the needle. There is no magic number of days that make habits stick: 21 is a myth, and even a research-based 66 days is just an average (the range was found to be 18-254 days).

If you want to use a challenge to jump-start transformation, you have to accept the real challenge at hand: doing what it takes to turn a behavioral change into a new habit.

What Makes Challenges Challenging

Gretchen Rubin, the author of Better Than Before, offers some interesting insight into why challenges might be a fun experiment but not necessarily a change agent. First off, there’s an inherent issue with having a built-in finish line: it’s a stopping point. Once you’ve reached that goal, you have to begin again — and that’s much harder than starting in the first place.

Beyond that, the short-term aspect can backfire, especially for challenges that require an “all-or-nothing” commitment or set an especially high bar. Sure, you can do almost anything for a little while, but it’s not sustainable long-term. And therein lies the key to cracking the code to using a challenge as a catalyst:

To maintain a habit, we need to figure out, ‘What’s manageable, what’s realistic for me to maintain indefinitely?’ And that can be a hard, messy question to answer. The ‘challenge’ may help to answer it, but often doesn’t provide an actual answer.

Just because you hit reset doesn’t mean you’re going in a new direction. To get on track with actual transformation, you’ve got to commit to change, not just the challenge.

What Works, No Contest

We’ve written a lot here at Further about the mindsets and actions it takes to make a good habit last. Here are a few of the central nuggets to help you achieve personal growth:

• Focus on process over results to forge a new identity.
• Pride is a potent motivator, so seek out and celebrate milestones. (Rubin agrees and suggests reframing a 30-day challenge as a milestone, not a stopping point.)
• Use research-backed strategies like small rewards and social accountability to stay on track.
• Develop desirable habit loops to achieve incremental change.
• Remember, smart habits beat ambitious goals.

When devising our new accountability membership community Well + Wealthy, Brian, Jerod Morris, and I considered all of this. When it comes to helping people live their best life at midlife, all we can say is: Challenge accepted.

Keep going-

Trudi Roth

P.S. There’s still time to sign up for Get Moving in 2022 with Krista Stryker, happening today at 3pm Eastern / Noon Pacific. If you can’t make it live, we’ll send you the recording, so fill out that quick form!