Today, September 23, marks the beginning of the last 100 days of the year. I’ve seen other people on the internet and social media set challenges for themselves for this period of time. Sometimes it’s called the great lock-in, which sounds daunting to me. Othertimes it’s much simpler, just one habit to tackle— ideally every day— for the last 100 days of the year.
I know how I am with challenges (not good), so my plan is to take this relatively easy. This post was initially scheduled for LAST year, but I think I abandoned the challenge before it even began. I looked back at my notes and I had A LOT of plans! 10 habits to do every day and 10 projects to finish. I honestly don’t know if I did anything. But this year I’m going to approach it differently. Three habits/practices that I would like to do every day, but if I miss a day it won’t be the end of the world.
One downward facing dog
At first I was going to make this a sun salutation, but after looking up exactly what that entails, I feel that’s a kinda hard place to start. So I’m taking a page from the Lazy Genius’ book (literally, she writes about this very practice in her book) and I’m going to do one downward dog every day.
This month so far I’ve been doing PT every other day (the alternating days I do a short strength workout), and part of my PT flow (I mix PT exercises with some yoga and Pilates moves) includes a down dog at the end so this shouldn’t be too much of a stretch… no pun intended!
This is my favorite part of my PT practice, so I think it should be easy to check off every day and is a good way to stretch my back and hips before I do any of my other morning movement goals.
Declutter one item
To be honest, I was going to leave my 100 Day Challenge with just the downward dog. But then I thought, maybe I can push it a little more (and also tie it in with my Project 180 areas a bit)— so I’m also going to try to declutter at least one item every day. This could be a piece of trash, something to recycle, returning something I borrowed, deciding on something to donate, etc. I might not physically get rid of the donations each day, but they will be collected to take once I have a bag or box worth of things.
Since writing the first draft of this post, and working on the first edit I came up with two more ideas in the realm of decluttering. First, to declutter my digital devices– photos on my phone, files on my computer, etc. This idea was sparked courtesy of Plan With Laken on YouTube where she was announcing the 100 Day Challenge she hosts with her online communities (and where I first learned of this concept). The second thing to declutter is my schedule! This was courtesy of Laura Vanderkam’s podcast Before Breakfast. Now granted, my schedule is not full with a lot of official happenings, but I certainly like to create a schedule for all types of time blocks and such. So maybe I’ll take a look and declutter a bit as part of this challenge…
Create something?
And lastly… since one of my areas for Project 180 is creativity I want to draw or create something every day. This can be a doodle, a sketch, a painting session, working on hand lettering, building up a collage page in my junk journal, or maybe something more complex if time allows— though I’m certainly not going to push myself to do that! The point is to do the reps so I build this into my every day, because that is something I want to work on long term.
I’m not aiming for 100% perfection during these last 100 days, but I am excited to try to keep the ball rolling relatively consistently in these three areas for as many days as I can. My goal is to not skip two days in a row, a tenet I want to apply to other habits I hope to nurture in my life as well. Wish me luck! Now I’m off to create a tracker!
Have you ever done a 100 day challenge?
Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash
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