So, you have made it through the first five days of your 30 days to success! Congratulations again! Everything from here is a piece of cake, but don’t let your guard down, because you are still going to have days where you feel like giving up, and where you think that this is never going to work and that your brain is unwilling to get the message that these are habits that you need to form.
First of all, take a look back at the past few days. Was it a struggle? If the answer was no, then you might not have been trying hard enough or challenging yourself enough. For most people, getting through the first few days is a major struggle.
But no matter how hard or easy the past few days were, the good news is, now you can forget about that portion of your habit-forming plan. Never again will you have to do those grueling first few days – unless of course, you give up somewhere in the near future and have to start all over again later on.
So, let’s go through the rest of your thirty days, one at a time, with a little inspiration and motivation to carry you through the rest of the period.
Day 6: You are doing a great job! You have made it through the toughest part and now it’s time to stick to those habits and make them your own.
Day 7: Remember, when you make a mistake or have a setup, it’s not proof that you are going to fail. The only thing it proves is that you are trying.
Day 8: You are amazing! You have made it through an entire week of forming a new habit. You are a quarter of the way there and you are getting close to the downhill slope of this plan.
Day 9: Desire is the key to motivation but it is your persistence, hard work and sheer determination that will actually get you through the doorway of your dreams.
Day 10: Guess what! You are 1/3 of the way there. You have done better than more than 60% of people who set out to develop new habits. You are not yet part of the successful elite, but you are well on your way!
Day 11: Take this day and skip your habits to do a self-evaluation. Do you think you are working as hard as you can towards your goals? Do you feel like your habits are really starting to stick? Do you need to adjust your triggers or throw some of them out completely? Take this day and make sure that you are on track and that nothing in your plan needs adjusted.
Day 12: Remember back to day one? You never thought you would make it this far. But here you are almost halfway through the month. You should complete your habits today, but you should also think about what your life is going to look like when you reach your goals and you get the rewards from forming these habits. Come up with actual scenarios and make them as close to reality as possible.
Day 13: Remember, your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your actions, your actions become your habits and your habits become you.
Day 14: Remember this whenever you think that your work in developing permanent habits is having no effect. ”The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” ― Samuel Johnson
Day 15: You have reached the halfway point of your 30 day period! You are halfway to making the habits that you are working on permanent. At this point, you should be remembering to complete your habits even without the triggers that you have designed. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should stop using the triggers, but just be aware that this might be a milestone.
Days 16-20: This five day period is going to be your first of three sprints. If you have been slacking off and haven’t been giving 100% of your effort to your habits, these sprints are designed to bring them back on track.
First, spend a day reviewing your motivation again and making sure that you don’t need to adjust any of your strategies. The remaining four days, you are going to go above and beyond your original plan.
If you were going to spend 30 minutes at the gym per day, then you will spend 35 minutes on the four days that you are doing the sprint. If you were going to spend an extra hour working on your online business, then spend an extra hour and fifteen minutes.
Days 21-25: This is sprint #2. This is going to be the same, except that you don’t need to spend a day reviewing your motivation and changing your strategy. This is going to be a full on, five-day sprint.
Days 26-30: This is your third sprint. This time, you are going to do a four day sprint again, but on day 26, when you sit down to evaluate your progress, this time, you are going to draw a timeline to the future in order to see how these habits will change your life if you keep them up after the 30 days.
Remember, you are coming to the end of your journey, and that can sometimes result in relaxing for a few days after such a difficult journey. But at this point, these habits should be second nature to you, and there shouldn’t be much effort involved in completing them.
If you are still struggling, then it is more important than ever not to take a break for several days and instead, to keep pushing forward. The next chapter will give you some suggestions on how to push past the first 30 days.
