We all search for that one habit, one step, and one activity that will change our lives forever. And while the truth is that to change our lives, we just need a single second of taking a different decision, sometimes, there isn’t any decision to be taken.
Therefore, we usually turn towards challenges for self-improvement to point us in a different direction, give us another perspective of our own lives, and help us grow and evolve into our best selves.
This 30-day self-improvement challenge will do that as well. It will challenge your beliefs, push your comfort zone, nourish the good inside you (by surfacing it) and help you do 30 tiny steps to an overall better You.
What are 30-Day Challenges?
30-Day challenges are month-long guides with 30 ideas, tips, tasks, or activities one could do to improve areas of their life or change something about their lifestyle. The ideas and tasks are usually clear, actionable, and selected in a way that gradually leads to fulfilling the challenge’s goal.
You can track each challenge using a challenger tracker, a simple checklist or by simply storing it al Lin your head (which never works, but doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try).
Do 30-Day Challenges Work
30-Day challenges and any other type of challenge always give you results. It might not be the result you initially were looking for, but it changes your perspective and shows you that you can make it happen if you put your mind to something.
The outcome of every challenge, be it 30-day or 7-day, would always depend on your dedication to it. For example, if you go on a challenge to read a book every week for a month, then it is entirely up to you to find the time and read those books.
However, at the same time, each task, action step, or idea from a challenge should be carefully selected to serve the overall goal of the challenge.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you sign up or make a purchase I might get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my business. See full disclosure.
Benefits of Going Through Challenges
I can guarantee you a few things will happen if you stick to the challenge for 30 days. Here they are:
- Learning to check in with yourself – each challenge asks you to do something different with yourself for 30 days. That automatically translates into being present in your own life.
- Building self-confidence – If you stick to something for 30 days, you will soon gain the confidence of being responsible and capable to stick to anything else in life.
- Learning discipline – This is probably the greatest benefit of every 30-day lifestyle challenge. Too often the reason we cannot succeed in life is not because we have no ideas or opportunities, but because we lack the discipline to act upon them.
Now, if you are ready to improve your life in 30 days, let’s start with this challenge.
30-Day Self-Improvement Challenge
Day 1: Start with gratitude
Your first tasks will be a month-long. Every day, for the next 30 days, you are going to write one thing you are grateful for from that day.
Gratitude is such an essential part of one’s personal growth, and if you are new to this blog, now would be the time to find out that Gratitude is one of the main topics we talk about here. It’s changed my life for the last ten years, and it has done the same for so many other people.
Gratitude’s real power lies not in the act of saying, Thank you! but in cultivating a positive feeling or life appreciation consistently every single day.
You could open an empty notebook, write the numbers from 1 to 30, and go back to it every evening to write your one word of Gratitude.
Alternatively, you could do it the fun way and have your own Gratitude Jar to download on your device now and either print it out or keep it on your device and write in it every day.
Day 2: Listen to a podcast about Happiness
There are so many interesting podcasts on happiness, how to find happiness and how to become happier that I cannot add them all here. But I can list a few here below and hopefully you will find the perfect one for you among them:
Day 3: Clean It Up
Open a drawer, a cupboard, or a room in your house that it’s messy, and you keep ignoring it. I know you have such a place, so go ahead and clean it up today.
It’s proven that living in a messy environment affects our mental health negatively. The physical acts of cleaning, decluttering, and wiping dirt out creates a positive self-image and makes us feel good about ourselves.
There are just a few people I know that are always on top of their cleaning, but that usually happens at the expense of something else (like free time, for example).
If you are like the rest of us, where ignoring the dust or the messy drawer in the kitchen has become a well-nurtured habit, then this task of the 30-day self-improvement challenge will make you feel productive.
Day 4: Create an “Unfinished Tasks List”
Now, I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself: Do you have a long list of things to do but never get around to actually doing them? Maybe it isn’t a physical list, but it is just in your head, and you keep ignoring it (weekend after weekend).
Well, it is time you do something about it.
Follow these three steps:
- Write down everything that comes to mind, no matter if you have time to do them today or not (most likely, you don’t). – this is a brain dump template that can get you started.
- Next to each task on that list write the estimated time of doing it, even if it’s just a less-than-a-minute-long (like, clicking the update button on your laptop)
- If something takes you less than 2 minutes to finish, do it today. The rest goes for your next day off from work (no excuses allowed).
The idea with the 2-minute rule isn’t mine, but it comes from David Allen’s bestseller Getting Things Done. If you like the rule, you will enjoy the book as well.
Day 5: Delete apps
Delete three apps from your phone that don’t serve your best self.
Now, here’s the trick!
I didn’t say “that don’t serve You”, but “that don’t serve your Best Self”. You don’t have to look at that tasks from where you are on your personal growth journey, but from where you want to get.
This goes well with the idea of faking being the person you want to be until you become that person. Imagine yourself in a year or five years from now. Who do you want to be? Would that person get any value from the apps you keep wasting time on?
Take the hard decision today and delete at least three apps.
Day 6: Make a list
You could do that in a journal. List three areas in your life that go smoothly and are problem-free.
These could be good habits you have that you don’t need a reminder to stick to or three relationships with people around you that are flourishing… whatever it is, find three things that are just perfect in your life right now.
Also, try to find out Why they go so smoothly. Is it because you worked hard for it? Was it a matter of a hard decision you took in the past? Was it because it’s your passion and you’ve put focus on those things? Did you get helped in the process? Explore what made you successful there.
Day 7: Make another list
List 3 areas in your life that need improvement.
Of course, you knew that one was coming your way.
Using the lessons from yesterday’s task, list at least three ideas on improving each of these three areas.
Day 8: Help someone
Just a few days ago, I published a post on 100 ways to help others. Your task is to choose one of the ways and to do it today. I understand you might not have the time to read through the whole post, so here are 10 of my favorite ideas from it.
- Volunteer in an animal shelter.
- Donate clothes and shoes you don’t use anymore.
- Offer your seat in a public transport to a pregnan woman or an elderly person.
- Choose a charity to join with as much (or as little) you can.
- When you are in a friend’s house, help with the dishes.
- Express ppreciation toward someone you love.
- Prevention is better than recycling, so why not keeping reusable bags in your purse.
- Support a small business where you live. Remember, they feed families not shareholders.
- Talk to someone who looks excluded at a gathering.
- Offer to help a neighbour with garden work.
Day 9: More veggies
Your task is very simple: Add one extra veggie to each meal today, but it must be different every time. If you have three meals, that would mean adding three different veggies to the meal you already have prepared.
C’mon, dig in that refrigerator for the broccoli you have kept ignoring since last Thursday.
Day 10: Rearrange furniture in your home
Okay, now I surprised you! Why would I add this in a 30-day improvement challenge?
It’s very simple, to be honest!
It’s the reason you clicked on this challenge and the reason you need a challenge in life: Change!
You need some change. You crave something different that would take you out of the rut you’re stuck in.
By rearranging the furniture in your house or room, you temporarily satisfy the craving for change. Your brain needs to get used to the new layout, which makes things interesting, at least for a while.
I wish I could show you the journey my work desk makes around the office every few weeks. I’m running out of options where to place it, but that’s my problem and not yours.
Now, go ahead and move something somewhere. I know you want to.
Day 11: Don’t procrastinate on anything
Today is your no-procrastination day! You have the right to hate me, but you don’t have the right to procrastinate. Just for a day, don’t leave anything for “later”. Just do it now, whatever it is.
I had such a day for the first time just a few months ago, and I was shocked at how fast my 12-hour working day turned into 6-hour working (I wish I were exaggerating). I can’t say I stuck to the idea for more than a day, but I am pushing myself to have at least two no-procrastination days every week.
On those days, your phone isn’t a priority. Neither is social media, TV shows or gossiping with your colleagues.
Day 12: What is it that you resent?
Journal time! What is one thing you resent in your life? Can you change something about it? If not, can you change the way you look at it?
One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Wayne Dyer: Change the way you look at things, and things you look at will change!
Follow his advice and see what you can do with it.
Day 13: Empty your inbox
Once, I accidentally deleted all of the emails in my inbox (roughly 700 emails), and after 5 minutes of panicking over it, I looked at the empty inbox and felt so free. Since then, I have never kept more than 10 emails in my inbox; I deal with them immediately.
I’ve also created a zero-inbox system I like to follow if things ever go out of control, so go have a look at it as well.
Day 14: Go for a walk
Today you go out for a 30-minute walk alone, without using your phone – no unnecessary chats, no listening to music and no listening to a podcast.
This walk is just for you and your mental health. It is an experience that will teach you the beauty of the present moment. Some people call it mindfulness. Notice the world around you, the sky, the smell in the air, the leaves under your shoes, the wind in your face.
Day 15: Pick an unfinished book
Pick a book you started reading but never finished. Now, it is time to decide: read it or get rid of it. If you know that you won’t finish it, you must donate it to a thrift shop or gift it to a friend. That book isn’t to stay in your library as it is. Do something about it.
The reason behind this task is to close a tab in your mind. Just as it was with the brain dump idea, this do-it-now task will make you finish a chapter (pun intended) and feel lighter and brighter. Yes, it’s one thing less on your mind now.
Day 16: Send a “Thank you” card
Send a Thank you! message (or a real physical card) to someone who has had a significant impact on your life lately. Let them know you appreciate them.
Day 17: Read this!
Too often, we cannot improve ourselves or change to be our best selves because of self-hatred. If you skipped already any of the previous days, I bet you were angry with yourself. You were blaming yourself for being unable to stick to something so simple as a 30-day self-improvement challenge.
If you struggle with these types of thoughts, I recommend reading this short post here on how you can’t hate yourself into someone you love.
Day 18: Journal time
I’ve got 50 journaling prompts that will spark the creativity inside you, but here are my 10 favorites:
- If I had a magic wand and could perform one spell only, that would be…
- If I were to re-live one full year of my life, that would be… (please, don’t say 2020) Explain why.
- What if… write the first hting that comes to your mind.
- I wish I could invent…
- My very first childhood memory is…
- If I was the scriptwriter of my life, this is what would happen in the next few weeks…
- The most creative thing I have ever done was…
- The most unusual thing I have see in my life was…
- The most ridiculous hting that could ever happen right now is…
- If I could choose what to dream about every night, I would choose…
See 40 more creative journal prompts here.
Day 19: 5 Minutes breath work
Spend five minutes only doing simple breath work (no need to be too deep breathing), but saying this every time: Inhaling my future, exhaling my past. If you need some guidance, check the video below.
Day 20: Do something that takes you out of your comfort zone
I’ve got quite a few posts on the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone whenever possible. If you enjoy this challenge so far, I would be cheeky enough to offer you have a look at my comfort zone challenge as the next thing to do for personal development.
However, your task today is to do just one thing that pushes your boundaries.
Here are five ideas for you:
- Don’t use any electricity for half a day.
- Buy a plant and plant it somehwere public (make sure it’s allowed).
- Quit coffee for a day.
- Sit for a full hour doing absolutely nothing.
- Start the day by sending gratitude messages to five people.
Day 21: Read this!
I will keep this one as short as possible. If you feel like you always want more of life and are never satisfied with what you have, you aren’t alone. Many of us feel that way, and there is nothing to blame ourselves for. Read this post on why exactly you feel that way and, more importantly – how to change it.
Day 22: Plan
We all know how we should be planning our days, but we rarely do it. We allow external things and events to mess with our goals and priorities. So today, sit for half an hour, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate, and plan your week in a way that genuinely serves your goals and prioritises what truly matters.
I am not asking you to follow that plan but to do it. Following it is a decision you have to take afterward.
Day 23: No sugar
That’s about it. No-sugar day it is.
Sugar might be the only taste we are born to crave, but it is also mentioned a linked to cancer production in the body. Ut also accelerates the aging of the cells, and it’s associated with several diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, depression, and more.
Knowing that the average American consumes around 17 teaspoons of sugar daily, you might agree that skipping on them for a day is a great challenge.
Day 24: Make a list
Yep, another list, but you will love this one. Make a list of the things you deserve in life. Don’t be shy; this list stays for you. Start with relationships (including the one with yourself), career after that, brush over the physical items you believe you deserve to have.
Keep that list around you as it serves as a manifestation list.
Day 25: Declutter something
Whatever it is. Donate clothes you don’t wear anymore, throw broken furniture away, give extra food away. Reduce the clutter in your home, and the clutter in your mind will follow.
Consider this success if you declutter at least one thing.
Day 26: Take a class
You could either use the opportunity to watch a Skillshare class for free by signing up for their free 14-day trial (no credit card is required to sign up) or choose any of these 10 TED Talks that are truly life-changing.
Day 27: Do something nice for yourself
Whatever comes to mind that you need right now – deliver it to yourself. Yes, you deserve it.
Day 28: Review your work-life balance
Do you work too much and ignore your family and relationships? What if it’s the opposite? Does your work suffer from a lack of dedication and care?
Review your work-life balance and see what adjustments could be made to … well, balance it.
Day 29: Collect your Gratitude Jars
By far, you should have at least 28 gratitude words (one a day). Whether you were writing them in your notebook or got your Gratitude Jar from here, you should have a good chink of things you are grateful for. Spend a few minutes reading these daily entries. Feel and live through the gorgeous feeling Gratitude is.
Day 30: Reflect on the month
The last day of every challenge should be about reflection. What did you learn? Did you surprise yourself? Were your limits pushed, or you did everything with almost no effort?
Reflect on the lessons you might have learned, decide if it was successful and if you’d do it again.
And, please, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Conclusion to the Challenge
I truly hope you enjoyed this challenge and it helped you have a different point of view of your life. Self-improvement is a journey with thousands of steps, and you just made 30 of them. I wish you success ahead.
If you like challenges, here’s a list of a few more you will find on this blog:
- 50 Monthly Challenge Ideas for Better You;
- 30-Day Comfort Zone Challenge to Push Your Limits;
- Glow-Up challenge To Feel and Look Your Best;
- 21-Day Journaling Challenge for Beginners in Journaling
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
