Have you ever being challenged to achieve a certain goal by a set deadline? Life-goal challenges have been the hype for some time in the world of self-improvement because they are a way of kickstarting your motivation and holding yourself accountable. But some people find it very hard to follow through with this challenges or they avoid them altogether. So, how can you stop being “challenge” challenged?
A challenge seeks to put some skills or belief to the test under certain conditions and it’s usually difficult to accomplish. We all understand how this works when it comes to competitions or contest of some sort. Do you remember how as kids we were challenging each other all the time to see who was the fastest, the strongest or who jumped higher? Sometimes we were challenged by our parents to be at the top of our class or clean our rooms before dinner “or else…” The way we perceived those experiences of being “measured” and compared to others certainly influences our behavior towards difficult tasks.
When the outcome was positive and others showed their appreciation to us, we were left with a feeling of self-pride and reassurance. On the other side, if the results were not up to the expectation and scolding from parents/teachers/friends followed, we associated challenges with a sense of failure, punishment and humiliation. This emotional response is so embedded our core that even in adulthood it conditions our “flight or fight” attitudes in everything from board games to life dreams.
So, why is people afraid of self-improvement challenges where they’re just judged by themselves? Because that fear is so embedded in our core that we don’t want to acknowledge to a single soul, not even ours, that we failed.
All of us have failed at something at some point in life. I know I have and it’s a bitter feeling. However, I’ve learned that the only way of overcoming a difficult situation is by refusing to let it take the best out of you. Not long ago I faced a demanding challenge, writing a PhD. thesis, and I failed… I didn’t finish. No one was disappointed, but me; no one reproached me anything, but me. In fact, I found the love and support of many people around me and in due time, I found myself ready to enroll in a new semester to keep fighting for my goal. However, now I’m more aware of the traps out there and I’m determined not to make the same mistakes again. That’s precisely how you stop being “challenge” challenged.
When you take your 30 seconds of courage to say: “I’m not done yet”, you’re creating new paths on your brain that helps you process failure not as final point, but as a stage of the journey. Just, like excercising a muscle or learning a new skill, the more you challenge yourself to do something, especially if it’s time-bound, the easier it becomes to defeat that inner resistance to be tested.
As a matter of fact, fighting small battles like drinking 8 cups of water a day for a week or commiting to a daily hour of focused work on an important project, have the cumulative effect of building a habit, creating momentum and raising confidence as we make progress with little achievements. That’s why setting SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) have a key impact on how we face any challenge. Any project, dream or idea can be broken down into minimal components that are achievable, understandable, meaningful and traceable. In my PhD. example it could look something like this:
-November 6 to November 12, create bibliography list
-November 13 to November 19, choose readings for framework chapter and scan through contents. Then order by potential relevance.
-November 20 to December 3, read through first book and take notes.
As you see, that represents almost a month good of work that’s specific, doable and time-bound, but they only represent half the battle. As we stated earlier on, those who thrive in competition tend to do so, because they have something to gain from it. Whereas the lack of humiliation is easily met by avoiding the problem, the prospect of winning a prize or getting recognition can be only achieved by actively engaging in the task at hand. In other words, it’s not the same to think “I don’t want to lose” than “I want to win”. So, setting a reward system to give us a sense of victory is nice way to stay on track and be reminded that good things may come from being challenged. Sometimes the reward is being admired by others, which is fine as long as it doesn’t turn into vanity and narcissism. In fact, the people around us play a significant role in our success.
More often than not, when we announce to family and friends that we want to do something like losing weight or publish a novel we receive a cold response or open discouragement. This is a factor that contributes to our fear of achieving a difficult goal, or sometimes just a different goal from what is expected from us. Let’s not forget that people around us have faced their own battles and they might want to protect us from future disappointments or, let’s face it, they might be proficient in that area and don’t want you to steal their thunder. Whatever the reason, it’s important to remember that we’re different people under different circumstances, which means that our results might be different as well. After all, nobody had reached the North Pole until someone did it for the first time. Look for people around you who is positive and shares your interests or join an online support group. When you see how others deal with the same struggles, you’d feel less lonely in your endeavour and most importantly, you’d find encouragement to keep going.
So, perhaps there’s much more to it than what I’ve explained here. However, I think these are the basic motives that hold most of us back when we try to turn our lives around. Recognizing that we’re afraid of failure and judgement is the first step to overcome that fear, for when we realize that we have all to gain and only opportunities to lose, then we may start to take action to get our goals.
