Challenging Yourself

Challenging Yourself
by Coach Colle Davis

The word challenge is a noun, and it is static. Challenging is a verb, a motion, behavior, or a dynamic action.

When was the last time you challenged (oh, another form) yourself to improve anything in your life? Have you taken any actions like finding a different way to shave, wearing your hair differently, or reaching out to someone to improve their world? These all qualify as challenging. All these examples are actions or behaviors that you control.

Success does not come by doing the same routines over and over the same way. It comes from challenging yourself to improve in some tiny way that forces your brain to come up with a better solution.

“If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done,
You’ll Always Get What You’ve Always Got.”

– Henry Ford.

• Something as simple as making that phone call you have been dreading moves one more checkbox off the list.
• Focusing on the outcome instead of the action makes it easy to postpone the action. The outcome of the action may, and probably will be, different from what you anticipated.
• It is the behavior, the action, that is key to moving your life forward.
• Outcomes are results, and you can adjust your behavior now to account for unexpected ones.
• Flexibility is the key, and the challenge is in the behavior. There is that word again.

Answer these six life-changing questions and write down your answers for reference in 90 days and again in 180 days:

1. What goals are you wishing or hoping will happen?
2. What are you DOING to further the possibility of achieving those goals?
3. Think of one small action you can take today to move you closer to your outcomes to improve your life.
4. Where do you feel you can get the most benefits from what you are doing today?
5. Is it your physical output, skills output, some mundane tasks you must perform too much of the time, or some other handy excuse for not making a change?
6. What has to happen to accept that challenging yourself is the most productive and valuable behavior available to you?

Your tiny differences in behavior are easy, fun, funny, and amazing for my clients. These can be something as simple as starting to shave on the other side of their body, brushing their teeth with the other hand, and putting on their pants or shoes, starting with the other leg first. You laugh, as most people do, and these changes make your lazy, happy brain process the new input to see if it works better or needs to change or decide if it is too silly/hard. Post-It notes are helpful for reminders during this behavior-awareness training.

“Coach Colle, it cannot be that easy” is the most frequent response I receive from people. My response is “First do the change; then, if you want, make it hard. Yes, change is that easy. It is our fear of change that we dread.”

Challenging yourself speeds up your life and career trajectory. Start today and shorten the time you think it takes to get that perfect job, that raise, or that promotion. Here is your new action mantra this week to remind yourself to take small steps toward your goals, CHA-CHA-CHA.