Have A Challenge? You Need One!

Still you don’t have a personal challenge? I am pretty sure that we all need (at least) one in our lives. Have a personal challenge to improve yourself in a particular aspect can make a real difference in your life.  I believe it strongly after seeing many successful people change their lives after taking on a challenge.

Are you an entrepreneur? Invest on yourself. Invest on your own personal development. This is like sports training: if you want to get better, you must do something that requires effort. And when the effort doesn´t guarantee easily the achievement… here is were the challenge begins.

Many people gets confused about this. They interpret that taking on a challenge is just doing something difficult and be rewarded or satisfied with the success… But it is far more than that. Actually, there is something essential in the challenge that is more important: change.

Challenge implies an improvement. So it is said: `If it doesn´t challenge you, it doesn´t change you.´

There are, in my opinion, the main characteristics of a good challenge:

1. Personal: The challenge has to be personal, that is, you take all the responsibility for failing or winning.

2. Measurable: you can measure results. If you can quantify them, better. You need to know how are you doing!

3. Do not affect negatively other good habits: it does not suppose a conflict with other good habits you have previously acquired or you are on the go to acquire them.

4. Limited time for doing it: there is a time to do it. It has a starting a finishing date (even a starting and a finishing our). Experience says that challenges with no previously stablished time frames are more difficult to measure.

5. Easy to plan victory: it is better to choose a challenge in which you can make a simple strategy to win (`simple´ does not means necessarily `easy´). Make it simple!

6. Big prize: Why not considering a challenge with a big prize to motivate yourself? Think of a prize, but take it only in case of victory. Remember: failing must not be an option!

7. Useful: Find a challenge that moves you to do useful things. Avoid nonsense goals. They won´t result motivating as time passes by.

8. Part of a bigger goal: what if every challenge you won helped you to reach a higher goal? When considering a challenge, think: what would be next? For example, if you are thinking about losing weight, you can make this goal part of a bigger goal, like being more energetic and impact better on the ones that surround you.