ANALYSIS of October Challenge 2007

First, the stats (goal 1/goal 2, Fail/Success):

01 and 02: --
03: S/S
04: S/S
05: F/F
06: S/S
07: F/S
08: F/S
09: F/S
10: S/F
11: S/S
12: S/S
13: S/S <-- this was the last day I woke up on time
14: F/F
15: F/S
16: F/F
17: F/F
18: F/F
19: F/S
20: F/F
21: --
22: F/F
23: F/S
24: F/S
25: F/S
26: F/S
27: F/F
28: F/F
29: F/S
30: F/F
31: F/F

I completely failed in my goal to start waking up early. Now, there are reasons for this; I have nothing like a job or school to get me up in the morning, and I'm having health problems that leave me in pain every morning (I know, nineteen-year-olds aren't supposed to get problems like this).

Towards the end of the month, I thought I was at least managing to establish a praying habit, but even that collapsed (considering I only remembered once in the past five days).

I'm inclined to label this entire month a failure, but then, it was my first Monthly Challenge, so I know to cut myself some slack. Also, my first goal was apparently unobtainable anyway. And at least the month helped me begin to establish a praying habit.

About life goals: Seeing how much my lifestyle affects my desire to get up has reinforced my desire to move out on my own and get a job. However, other people have put that on a back burner for the moment, so I'll have to distract myself with next month's goals.

I'm proud that I went for almost entire weeks praying every single morning. I wish I could do that every day.

One strategy that worked is, as it says on the site, establish keywords and triggers that get you to do the habit. In this month's case, I managed to halfway-establish that when I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, I should start thinking about praying.

My November challenge is yet another twofold goal: to write 2000 words every day for NaNoWriMo, and to take my vitamins every morning before breakfast (or, on the 99% of days where I forget breakfast, before lunch). The first goal is something I know I can do if I apply myself; the second is very tiny and simple, like prayer.

See you in November!

1. How did my October challenge proceed? What is my score?
I failed 9 days, so on the whole not great - 22 days without sweets, chocolate or pizza though

2. In my October challenge, what has been my greatest achievement?
Passing on chocolate handed round at work! Also I've lost a few pounds.

3. How did my October challenge bring me closer to accomplishing my life goals?
I lost a little weight, and started thinking about how much I need to lose weight. So yeah, it brought me closer.

4. In my October challenge, what have I been most proud of?
Going to a pizza place where everyone was having pizza and I ordered the pasta

5. In my October challenge, what has been difficult for me and why?
saying no to chocolate! chosing healthy snacks over unhealthy ones.

6. In my October challenge, what has been the greatest waste of time?
i don't think this is applicable

7. In my October challenge, what have I done that I am ashamed of?
na

8. In my October challenge, what strategies have worked well, and how come?
letting everyone know what I'm doing so they don't let me eat things I shouldn't!

9. In my October challenge, what strategies didn't work well or failed, and how come?
My worst thing was if I failed, I wrote that day off and ate more chocolate... def. not a good thing.

10. What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
I've not decided yet. I don't think it'll be another diet one though.

For my October challenge, I chose to work out five days a week, spending three days strength training and two days working on cardio. My first day actually participating in the challenge was the 8th, so that's why the numbers are lower than they ought to be.

I did 16 out of 17 of my scheduled workouts this month, meaning I followed through 94% of the time.

All in all, I'm very proud of my results, yet there's a lot of room for improvement. On a number of days I did my workout after ten or even eleven at night. Tonight I wasn't even quite finished at midnight. I'm going to chalk up my motivation to do them to the forum. I'm amazed how well keeping my record public motivates me, despite the fact that I don't actually know anyone here. I'm not quite sure what's the best way for me to motivate myself to get things done at the best possible time rather than at the last possible moment. I suppose I could always make my next challenge time specific, but life doesn't always allow for doing things at the same time each day and I'm afraid that I'd lose motivation to complete my task on a given day if the allotted time for it had passed. If anyone has a suggestion about that I'd be delighted to hear it.

For me, this challenge illustrated the importance of having public goals and the helpfulness of tying desired actions to previously established habits or routines.

See you in the November forums!

I guess I did this about 2/3 of the month. That was a giant increase in what I was reading and helped move me along toward my goal of clearing out some books I've saved for years, because I want to read them. A few books I found that I just did not want to read.

I was thinking of doing the same goal again in November, but I'm satisfied with where I am with this goal and will work on a new one. I think I'll be able to keep doing the reading. If not, then I'll bring it up again for December maybe

Thanks for this list, helix. I will use this for my own review in the future!
Here is my review:

1. How did my October challenge proceed? What is my score?
Challenge 1 - Put in contact lenses every day: My score is 18/31.
Challenge 2 - No alcohol (started 20th of Oct): My score is 11/11 (or 11/12, if you want - Halloween was cheat day).

2. In my October challenge, what has been my greatest achievement?
C1: The main purpose for this challenge was to find out if I will continue wearing contact lenses. 18/31 may not sound great, but as there were many days where I couldn't put them in because I was so much on the go or had so much to do, it is ok for me. I always got them in when the circumstances allowed it what is a great achievement as a few months ago, I would never have thought I could get them in ever!
C2: The greatest achievement for me was to come to the conclusion I should slow down a little bit, although this may sound more dramatic than it is.

3. How did my October challenge bring me closer to accomplishing my life goals?
C1: The wearing of contact lenses should be better for my eyes than glasses, as my eye specialist said. So doing this on a regular basis is part of staying healthy.
C2: Similar to C1; and I want to be aware of myself and my surroundings. My best friend is drinking much the last months - I would like him to stop that and I don't want to get catched by it. In October, I couldn't use my own bathroom for about three weeks because of a renovation what really influenced my rhythm of life in a negative way. I want to re-establish my lifestyle from before.

4. In my October challenge, what have I been most proud of?
Getting the lenses in. ;)

5. In my October challenge, what has been difficult for me and why?
To find time to put the lenses in - many days I couldn't put them in because it is difficult to carry the whole equipment with me and at most find places where I can take the lenses out if I have a problem with them.

6. In my October challenge, what has been the greatest waste of time?
Hm, can't think of a waste of time relating to my challenge.

7. In my October challenge, what have I done that I am ashamed of?
The night that led me to start C2 ;) We had a great time this night, but our drinking was disproportionate - especially because I afraid something like this could happen and I told myself before I should be aware of that.

8. In my October challenge, what strategies have worked well, and how come?
What worked for C1: getting the lenses in without thinking about it long before; doing in in the morning after shower or in the evening before I could get too tired to do it.

9. In my October challenge, what strategies didn't work well or failed, and how come?
Putting the lenses in in the early afternoon, for example.

10. What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
The best thing I can think about is re-establishing my life style from before the renovation of the bathroom. Thanks to Leo and other people, I had established to live healthy (near to no alcohol, daily sport, I drastically reduced sweets etc). Without bathroom, I didn't do sport as I could only take a shower like only every second day what led to more alcohol and sweets for me.
As the bathroom is finished, I immediately started with daily sport. This was no problem.
I began to cut down alcohol a week earlier. This also went well. I have nothing against treating oneself with a cocktail or glass of something from time of time if there is a special event to celebrate, but I never want drinking alcohol to become a regular habit. So I will continue to report on this in November.
I also want to cut back on sweets again. From time to time, sweets is ok, but in the last weeks I had more than the months before. I will take Leo (and many others) as an example and introduce Saturday as my cheat day. Let's see how this works!

1. How did my October challenge proceed? What is my score?
it went well; I set out to practice 30 minutes a day and I did all but two days. And one of those I practiced for 25 minutes. So, I managed to practice 895 out of 930 possible minuts this month.

2. In my October challenge, what has been my greatest achievement?
Re-instating a practice routine.

3. How did my October challenge bring me closer to accomplishing my life goals?
Gotta practice to play well. No way around it.

4. In my October challenge, what have I been most proud of?
See #2.

5. In my October challenge, what has been difficult for me and why?
Over-estimated how much I could accomplish in this amount of time.

6. In my October challenge, what has been the greatest waste of time?
I was very efficient. No real waste of time.

7. In my October challenge, what have I done that I am ashamed of?
See #5.

8. In my October challenge, what strategies have worked well, and how come?
limiting it to 30 minutes. I was able to go longer if I wanted, but hitting 30 was realistic and enough to make progress on a daily basis.

9. In my October challenge, what strategies didn't work well or failed, and how come?
Again, see #5. I'm too ambitious.

10. What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
Getting out of bed early.

You can of course use your own questions, or other approaches to review and evaluation.

I'm a bit late, I had to take a breather. But, here's my analysis:


My October 2007 challenge was to eat last by 6.30 PM and brush my teeth right afterwards.

1. How did my October challenge proceed? What is my score?
My score is 22 out of 30, which is a 73% success.
Temporally, the distribution is such over the course of the day (S - succeeded, F - failed):
3S-1F-1S-1F-4S-1F-3S-1F-6S-1F-4S-2F-1S-1F

2. In my October challenge, what has been my greatest achievement?
To succeed six days in a row.

3. How did my October challenge bring me closer to accomplishing my life goals?
It strenghtened in my awareness the importance of appropriate timing in my eating habits. Namely, how well I sleep, when I'll be able to wake up in the morning and my overall energy levels depend a lot on when I eat last; if I eat last at too late an hour, it has an adverse effect on my well-being.

4. In my October challenge, what have I been most proud of?
That I actually went through with the challenge.

5. In my October challenge, what has been difficult for me and why?
To keep to the appointed time. I've noticed this oddity - there was immense mental pressure to be done on time, but that pressure was completely gone if I finished my dinner even if only just five minutes later, at 6. 35 PM. I've noticed this same phenomenon with other habits and tasks as well - there is this strange sense of relief when I fail. I so far don't know yet how come.

6. In my October challenge, what has been the greatest waste of time?
Not logging it right away. Often after it was 6.30PM, I would think about logging it, I would look at the red and grey markers, look at the calendar on the wall, but didn't log it. So I usually logged it only before I went to bed. I have experienced logging it as extremely stressful, so I put it off.

7. In my October challenge, what have I done that I am ashamed of?
See under nr. 6.

8. In my October challenge, what strategies have worked well, and how come?
- Eating last by a somewhat earlier time, like 6 or 6.15 PM. It relieved the pressure that I associated with 6.30 PM.
- Limiting the amount of paperwork. At first, I started a more engaged log, one where I assigned a small notebook to make remarks for every day - but that turned out to be too stressful, and I gave it up. Thinking about something too much can hinder actually doing it.

9. In my October challenge, what strategies didn't work well or failed, and how come?
- Logging at a later hour. I had the thought of logging it in the back of my mind for the rest of the evening, gnawing me. If I didn't accomplish my challenge for that night, it made the failure look even worse. If I did accomplish it, it made the success seem lesser.

10. What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
To hold my Planner in my hands for one minute every day and wish it and myself well.
I realize that this is probably one of the stranger things you've heard - but I have this immense mixture of both fear and aversion toward planning and logging, and I need to do something about it. I was inspired for this by some Buddhist practices.

Thanks for this list, helix. I will use this for my own review in the future!

-"Mat"

I'm glad you find it useful. :)

[color=darkblue:db586cfe2b]1 - How did my October challenge proceed? completely failed. I am so shame that I did not even spent time on stats f/s
2 - In my October challenge, what has been my greatest achievement? none
3 - How did my October challenge bring me closer to accomplishing my life goals? In the sens that I suceed to explain my family why it is good for all of us that I'm arriving on time @ my work
4 - In my October challenge, what have I been most proud of? to reach goal some days :oops: :?
5- In my October challenge, what has been difficult for me and why? was the challenge to high ? do I face an incompatible way of life ??
6 - In my October challenge, what has been the greatest waste of time? organisation of family life ? traffic in Paris area ?
7-
8-
9-
10-What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
No tv at all on evening... at least during working days 5/7 ! This will be benefit for both my health, sleep and famlily (tv produce a noise at night , even at sound level 1/10). I will then be probably more efficient in the morning to start leaving the appartment to be @ 9 AM at the office :wink: ... I'm more and more convinced that TV is the reason of all our problems , so this November challenge will at least solve most of mine[/color:db586cfe2b]