The Ultimate Robust, or Incremental, 30 Day Challenge

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whether you want to become a better athlete, writer, or musician, they all have something in common: it’ll require time and effort.

I can’t tell you it’ll be easy or share specific steps to get to your destination. (Unless you’re on the road, then use Google Maps.)  Everyone’s journey has a different origin and destination, so I can’t tell you the best tools or time of day to work on your project. Nor can I tell you what every successful person has in common.

What might look like success to one person, is a failure to another. It’s all in your perspective. Many people use their circumstances as an excuse before they even start. We say we don’t have the right tools to get the job finished correctly, or we’re in the wrong place or it’s the wrong time. Fear takes control, and we let a million other obligations demand priority over the project we want to do.

We’re all guilty of this from time to time, yet we wonder why we struggle, get frustrated, and don’t make the progress we want to make.

Forget about the tools. Forget about the time or perfect environment. Realize which excuses hold you back, even if you need to write them all down. Excuses try to camouflage themselves to look like the truth. Don’t let them fool you.

Once you’ve jumped this hurdle, you can get to the point and do what you need to do. So what’s your preference, a robust approach or an incremental approach?

The Robust Approach

Dive in and get serious about the project: dedicate an hour a day of solid work for 30 days. Give the project all of your attention. No distractions. No excuses. Mute the notifications and stop the breaks.

This approach sounds like a strict boot camp, but there is a reason behind it. Our mind and body need time to get into a flow state. Maybe the first 15 or 20 minutes seem like a complete waste of time. Proceed anyways, because after those 20 minutes you’re more likely to get into a flow state where you’ll be able to produce excellent results with little effort. Keep it up for 30 days, and see what happens.

After 30 days, you get to pick one of the three options:

1. If this project is one you want to build upon, continue for another 30 days.
2. Move onto a different project and use the same one-hour approach for 30 days.
3. If you gave this project a 30-day attempt and it still didn’t work, let it go. Not every idea resonates with everyone. Once you know what doesn’t work, you’ll be much closer to finding out what does.

The Incremental Approach

The incremental approach is similar to the robust approach, but it has a gradual start. Start with a few minutes a day, and work your way up to an hour a day for 30 days. In the long run, you’ll still develop an excellent habit most people don’t have.

Even if you don’t have an hour to spend, try 10 minutes. Some progress is better than none. Don’t write off this challenge entirely just because you think your schedule doesn’t allow for it right now.

The 30 Day Challenge

I’m not here to prescribe a one size fits all approach and claim it’s the only way to get things done. As Seth Godin said, “The only thing all successful people have in common is that they’re successful, so don’t waste your time to copying ‘the successful strategies’ of others.”

It’s one of my favorite challenges because we’ve seen both the robust and incremental approach work time and time again. Otherwise, we would still crawl and be unable to talk, read, or write. This strategy creates incredible results for infants, and it can work for you too.

This challenge is simple, but simple doesn’t equate to easy. There will be hurdles and times where you can think of a bunch of other things you’d rather do. Know what you want to achieve, and get to it.

This challenge is simple because you let go. You let go of the excuses. You let go of the distractions. Let go of all the complications and work on the process itself. The 30-day approach focuses on the foundation, and when the foundation is better, everything else will be too.

Don’t wait for a Monday. Don’t wait until next week or next year. A month, year, or decade later, it won’t matter when you started. What matters is that you started. Because a month, year, or decade later, you will be glad you did.

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