Background

A little over 2 years ago Jen came to Cusco with some friends for a visit… this gave us a chance to catch up and, as we do, talk about all sorts of super great ideas. One of those was to do monthly challenges. I did even realize that two years had passed since we began until Jen and I looked back at a record of all of our challenges! It’s really hard to believe that we have been doing this for two years. It has been a truly wonderful experience and a great way for Jen and I to stay in regular contact over all this time. I’m looking forward to many more years of challenges to come.

1^st Year Challenges:

1. August 2014 – Planks Every Day – FAILED!
2. September 2014 – Potty Mouth Be Gone – SUCCESS!
3. October 2014 – Photo Challenge – FAILED!
4. November 2014 – Stop Biting Finger Nails – SUCCESS!
5. December 2014 – No More Snooze Button – SUCCESS!
6. January 2015 – Dance Challenge 1 – SUCCESS!
7. February 2015 – Dance Challenge 2 – SUCCESS!
8. March 2015 – Journaling – SUCCESS!
9. April 2015 – Thank You Letters – FAILED!
10. May 2015 – Learn Brazilian Portuguese – SUCCESS!
11. June 2015 – Exercise Daily – FAILED!
12. July 2015 – Photo Challenge 2 – SUCCESS!

2^nd Year Challenges:

1. August 2015 – Different Daily Podcast – SUCCESS!
2. September 2015 – Yes-Man – SUCCESS!
3. October 2015 – Photoshop – FAILED!
4. November 2015 – ??? – FAILED!
5. December 2015 – On Turning 30 – SUCCESS!
6. Jan-Feb-Mar 2016 – Learn to Be a Better Leader / Manager – SUCCESS!
7. April 2016 – Read 30 Minutes Daily in Spanish – FAILED!
8. May 2016 – Sleep 7-8 Hours per Night – SUCCESS!
9. June 2016 – Be a Vegetarian – SUCCESS!
10. July 2016 – Reflect Daily – FAILED!

Thoughts:

Well, I had another year of 67% success rate and I am totally OK with that. It was a fun year with many great challenges for both Jen and I, including an attempt at a 3 month challenge for me. Without question, this year I enjoyed the vegetarian challenge the best with the daily podcast challenge as a close second. I definitely struggled the most with my daily reflection and learning how to better manipulate Photoshop. It’s always interesting to see the areas I succeed in and where I have the most difficulties.

NOTE: I cannot remember what I did for the month of November – 2015. I’m sure I failed this challenge and forgot to write about it in the blog, haha. Not to worry… as soon as I figure out what it was I will update the blog.

The Future:

I’m looking forward to continual personal development this year and challenging myself to always be a better person. Year 3… here we come! In fact, we already have our first challenge confirmed… after speaking with Jen I confessed that my finger-nails have gotten bad again (probably because of stress at work) and she has decided to re-challenge me in this area.