April 9, 2015
The Daily Act of Defiance 14 Day Challenge
First, I want to let you know about the free workbook to accompany this post. This is the first piece available for our free Toolkit. It outlines the whole process for you, features additional tips for making your plan work more naturally, gives example Acts of Defiance, and, most importantly, has complete Acts of Defiance and Adventure Log template forms to fill in and use to complete your own 14 Day Challenge. Download and type directly onto the PDF forms, or print them off to take with you. I’m excited to give this to you, and hope you find it very useful!
Last week I asked, “What if instead of resolving to make these sweeping changes, just once a day you rebelled against your typical lifestyle, and just did one thing -one choice, one activity, one change- that is good for you?”
Today, I am going to walk you through this process of defying our lifestyles just once a day to improve upon the health and wellness of our current habits. Instead of changing ourselves, we are going to stand defiantly, and rebel against those habits we would like to improve!
Your Acts of Defiance
The first step of the process is to write out your Acts of Defiance. This is going to be a list of activities, and choices to choose from for your daily activities. I know I said we are going to name, and focus on all the changes you’d like to make, but try to create a list that is between 4-7 items. The reason for any limit is to try to have at least a little repetition.
Examples include:
- Walk for 1 mile
- Run for 20 minutes
- Yoga for 20 minutes
- Meditate for 10 minutes
- Make/drink vegetable/fruit juice/smoothie
- Prepare/eat meal from XYZ Light-Recipes cookbook
What you put on your list is up to you. The purpose of this article is not to tell you what specific activities are right for you, but rather to give you a method and tools to define and complete those activities. In fact, you should always talk to your healthcare professional when making lifestyle changes to determine appropriate diet and exercise options for you. (If that sounds like a disclaimer, it’s because it is one.)
Back to the fun stuff- the items on your list should be straight forward and pretty basic. Try to vary your options a little to include dietary, exercise, and other options to minimize the risk of getting bored. It’s also a good idea to include activities that you enjoy doing, but just don’t get to as often as you like. I like to walk, but often fall out of the habit of doing so regularly. Therefore, I might write down, “Walk 2 laps around the neighborhood,” as an option I can look forward to.
However, this is about adding new healthy habits, or expanding habits you already have. So, if you currently walk daily, you have a few options. 1) You could put it on the list with an increase in time, or distance. So, if you walk longer it “counts” for the day, but if not it’s just your normal walk. 2) You could leave it off the list, and continue your normal walks without them “counting.” 3) You could put it on the list anyway. The reason you might do this is out of time constraint. Say you walk for 30 minutes every day. However, that is honestly all the time you have for some exercise, and you would like to put a 30 minute workout on the list. You know that will have to replace not supplement your walk. In this case you might choose to keep a walk as an Act just so it doesn’t fall out of your routine completely. This is a tricky option that I really really really try to avoid.
This whole process is designed to set you up to win, and get those win feelings. Still, to do that you have to be honest about what level of activity is an accomplishment for you. It doesn’t have to be a huge exhausting workout. We forget to feel proud of small successes, or we are tricked into being to embarrassed to. This is your Challenge! You set the rules. You know what a meaningful improvment is for you, no matter how small. Do that, and feel good about it!
After you pick items for your Acts of Defiance comes step 2. I want you to go back, and further define each item as specifically as possible so you know exactly what that is going to look like in advance. This will be easier for some activities than others. For example if you pick some sort of walk/run/elliptical exercise, I want you to define the minimum time, and usually the pace or intensity level. If you are just getting into a new activity it might even be appropriate to say “I’ll do it at a pace, so long as I do it for ___ minutes. If you are picking some sort of workout try to specify what lifts/reps/etc you want to do. The more specific you can be, the more automatic that win feeling will come because you are able to easily verify that you did what you set out to do.
I think dietary changes are harder, mostly because there are so many choices for meals that it is harder for me to define “healthy” in advance. They are also more challenging to use because eating a really healthy lunch, and a really unhealthy dinner more directly counteracted each other. Here are a few recommendations to make it easier.
- Many of us don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. Sometimes adding portions of healthful foods can be a meaningful improvement to your diet.
- Use meals from a reputable cookbook or website that only have “healthy” or “light” options. That way any recipe can “count.”
- Use “light” options on restaurant menu’s. These can often be misleading, and not necessarily “good for you.” However, they are probably better than alternatives in that restaurant.
Just remember to be realistic, and honest with yourself about what would be a healthy improvement for you. Then, define that option as well as you can in advance, before you are hungry.
After you have your Acts of Defiance, you are ready to go.
Your Adventure Log
The best way to stay committed to your Challenge, feeling good about your wins, is to keep a daily log of which Acts you picked, and to check off days as you complete your goals. The free workbook contains the complete Adventure Log forms for your 14 Day Challenge. If you prefer your trusty spiral notebook, the general points to write down are:
- Date/day of week
- Your Act of Defiance
- Plan
- Description
- Completion Check
Like most goals, the best way to be successful is to have a plan. As much as possible, pick an Act of Defiance in the morning, and jot down a short plan of how you will complete this. Mostly this helps you find the time. For example, if you are going to take a walk. A plan might be “I will take my walk after work, before Bill has dinner ready.” This helps you from running out of daylight, so to speak, and getting to 9 o’clock at night without completing an Act.
The description is another short after-the-fact description of how it went, and what you did. This allows both another chance to reflect, and feel proud, as well as provides a record of times, distances, and other metrics to improve on in the future.
Finally, check off that you completed your Act of Defiance for the day! Checking a box never felt so good!
Non-Habit-Forming Habits
So here’s the thing… Walking once a week for a couple weeks probably isn’t going to cause a daily walking habit to form on day 15. I know- I was as shocked as you are! This daily habit of pushing myself just a little to do one thing just a little better than normal hasn’t resulted in any specific daily habits per se. What it has done, and does do, is train you to be in the habit of building non-habit-forming habits. That is, in the quest to build many diverse new habits, it’s not the specific Acts of Defiance that become ingrained into our daily routines. The habit that forms is a way of looking for healthier options, subtlety improving on the things we already do, and living more well-rounded and healthful lives.
Just as the world is always changing, so, in reality, are we. It’s just a matter of whether it is for the better or worse. There are always successes and failures. However, I hope that you are always trying to improve, and I hope this helps you a little to succeed more often than you fail!
So here is my challenge to you-
Can you go 14 days in a row choosing to make one decision a day to defy, and improve upon, your present lifestyle?
-Michael Speck