Stop the Challenge!
The 21-day Challenge has taken an unexpected turn.
Yesterday I didn’t write a post, but that’s not the turn I’m talking about, so what is it?
When I first posted the challenge, I had already been doing it for 15 days and my initial objective was just to share my results with you guys.
While writing, I had the idea of challenging others to do the same.
I thought it could be helpful to some and ignored by others…
I was wrong!
A lot of people took on the challenge, but a lot felt like they were failing for not writing every day.
I felt guilty. This was not what I intended!
I tried to mitigate the damage by commenting on their posts, but I think in some cases I was still misunderstood.
The Purpose
The idea was that if we repeat an action every day for 21 days we create a habit, if we do it consciously, we can choose to create a healthy habit, one that will move us in the direction of our goals, to be a better person than we were. There’s always room for improvement.
My goal was to write a post every day for 21 days because I wanted to become a better writer, creating the habit of writing daily could help me achieve that goal.
But if I miss a day of those 21, do I become a worse writer? Of course not!
Did I still improve myself? Definitely!
So, the purpose of the 21-day challenge was not to never miss a day, that’s impossible!
Yeah maybe we can go 21 days without failing, but eventually we would miss one day, it happened to me yesterday as to many others…
What does it matter if I failed after or before 21 days? That’s not important, the objective was always to help us create a better version of ourselves.
Failing is in our nature
Our spirited Caleb wrote in his post today: “I will continue to fail. It is both my nature and my fate.”
He’s right, but it’s not just his nature and his fate, it is all of us’.
We are programmed to learn through failure, from birth.
How many times did you fall before you learned to walk?
What about after you learned to walk? Did you never fall again?
How many times did you fall before you learned to ride a bicycle?
What about after?
Think of all the things you’re good at, were you good the first thing you did it?
Was there anything you became good at without failing?
We were taught to fear failing, it’s not a natural fear!
I have two daughters, and with the youngest I’ve been paying attention to some details, like the ridiculous amount of times she falls… I even wrote a post about that, I estimated that she fell an average of 20 times per day, for over 3 months, now at a lower rate but keeps falling.
Another detail I noticed was the fact that she doesn’t fear anything until she has a reason to do so, i.e.: getting hurt.
Still, falling doesn’t discourage her from standing up.
Later, we go to school and we start to be punished for mistakes, praised for perfection, and all of this repeatedly until we are as close to robots as a human being can be…
This is not who we are, we learn through our mistakes not from other people telling us how it’s done!
So, this fear is not natural, it was been taught to us, and we need to get over it because as entrepreneurs we need to fail more than ever.
To be successful you only need to be right once!
Think about it, you can fail continuously for years, but the moment you are right you are successful.
It’s just a matter of semantics, the meaning we attribute to the word failure…
Back to my daughter walking, before she walked her first step, she stood up, then she tried gently to move her leg and fell, later she repeated the same process, and then again, until she successfully stepped forward without falling.
In that moment, she knew she could walk, it would take time and falling a lot more times, but she had done it, she only had to repeat it a bunch of times.
If you fail enough times to achieve the result you’re looking for, then you’ve proved to yourself that you can do it, you are already successful, you only needed to be right once, but you had to fail a lot of times.
I want to remove the burden of the challenge from everyone’s shoulders, including myself.
Write every day if becoming a better writer is your goal, but care not for the day you don’t write, this is not a failure but one step closer to success!
The Key is to never give up!
Wishing you all lots of success after your failures!
Recent Comments
21
Hello my dear friend! As you know, I was one of the first to back out of the challenge. Fear of failure was not my original excuse, as I am quite comfortable with failure as it is often my first hurdle I must overcome to succeed. No, fear of disappointing is my usual modus operandi—
OK, hear me out...I didn't want to disappoint you, the team, the question, "How's business?", but not once in that conundrum did I say, "How do you feel about that Liz*?" I was never in the equation. I think you will find in most care givers, the needs of the one that gives the most, are often the last one to have their needs met! I stepped away from WA for a few days. No blogs, messages, training and do a little investing in me. I can't say I had a huge epiphany or an "Ah Ha" moment, but I did have some quiet introspection of what matters most and what do I really want or really go with WA. I did this after receiving the "You are a loser" email from Amazon because I have not had a sale in 90 days as their associate.
I DO appreciate your creation of the 21-day challenge Fran because it turned into something much more than a challenge, test, or competition among the participants. I think we all agree that we spent some much-needed "ME" time and set priorities, short-term goals, and maybe finalized some topics.
Thank you Fran. I just want you to know that you have made an impact on my life with your beautiful words and not once did yo fail to say to me, "You got this!" 💕❣💕
My dear Liz*, I have no words to express my gratitude for your comment.
Yes, I do believe that The 21-day Challenge has had some positive impact, but it was time to halt it.
I have also been on a break lately. I haven't posted in days. Worked out the last tweaks on my project and today was the big day. It's out there now.
I hope you came out of your introspection with some strong will to succeed. I know you have a lot of good to share with the World.
Thank you, Liz*!
Ps.: You are a winner! What does Amazon know...
Without fail we cannot grow up. We learned from each fail.
Your posts are encouraging us to keep moving forward.
Our purpose is creat a good habit, and become a better writer or a better version of a person. This will not end in 21 days.
Thanks Fran for your help.
Amy
Thanks Fran for getting us back on track of what the true meaning of the challenge is! Such an inspiring and motivating post! Keep up the great writing!
Failure is not all bad if you learn and do not conintually repeat the same mistakes.
Keep on keeping on until success find you.
Barry/Barney44
Hey Fran
So long as we "fail forward" we're all good :-)
This is about creating habits and momentum - that has been successful.
Thank you for your insightful post - as always. Enjoy your little girls, they grow up so fast.
Blessings
Louise
Whew... I had a day, or two where I thought... I worked on my sites, but didn't post on WA. 😁
I researched, but didn't really write anything.
Then I looked at it from outside the box... 21 days of doing 'me'.
21 days of changing what wasn't working before.
21 days of finding a New Normal.
And so on. I don't think anyone, you, or anyone else can fail at a Challenge like this. It's how you go about succeeding in it. 🎉
Shaunna
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God damn!
Haha
The Irony!
If I had spent less time beating myself up over this challenge and more time reading your posts, I would have realized that I did not need to spend so much time beating myself up over this challenge and could have spent more time reading your posts!
That (from what I learned in "abstract algebra") a "recursive" structure!
You know fractals? (constants multiplied by a "fractional exponent")
Those are a "sub-set" of recursion!
Anyways, lol I am SO glad I read this post.
I've been beating myself up so bad for not meeting the "requirements" (perceived, in hindsight) of this challenge!
Man...
I have been kicking myself in the head over this.
I'm glad you addressed it in this post (and challenged me to read them!).
Thank you for this excellent post!
I appreciate it!
Take it easy on yourself, my friend. There's only one of you and your mind is needed, share it with the World, but at a rhythm that will keep you productive and that the World can understand.
If you try to give to much, others might not be receiving. They probably won't.
Challenge yourself a little every day, but don't be challenged by others just because...