30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

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Aracat

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Aracat » Thu May 16, 2013 12:25 am

Isaak wrote: ↑
Wed May 15, 2013 2:11 pm
Art Bootcamp Challenge for... a period of time. Yes/no? :party:
:ponder: Maybe.

Day 29:
Dear Princess CeleAracat,

Hopefully you're not slacking..
If you are, get off your butt.

There was some debris left in the wake of the challenge, sorry about that, but you're probably better for it.

Also your wings are so pretty. You did actually bother to get them, right?

YFS, Aracat

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 4:56 am

Venusy wrote: ↑
Wed May 15, 2013 6:20 pm
For those of you reading this from after November 15th, here is that video. The horse mask was only there briefly, but YouTube thumbnails still thought it was important. For everyone else, here's the letter I based it off (sent with the video as a FutureMe email).
Hey, that's pretty brillo! Never thought of recording yourself and scheduling the publication.
You could also schedule a blogpost, or an audio recording!
So here we are again (again). It's always such a pleasure.

Before we start, some music. If it hasn't been taken off YouTube, there's a high chance this will still run you through the emotional rollercoaster you felt when you first heard it.

How have you been? Likely very busy, with going to Euromeetup II, GalaCon, BUCK and with Euromeetup III likely looming on the horizon. How was Equestria Girls? Not as bad as you first thought, right? Has S4 started airing yet?

Anyway, that's not why I'm here, and you know it. You'll likely remember this, but six months ago, you did a 30 day life improvement challenge. You identified a lot of goals, challenges, and changes to make. And you did something that you don't usually ever do - you shared it all. If you haven't already, go and get that notebook now. If you can't find it, most of the pages are backed up in the Scans directory, and everything is archived in the thread.

I want to remind you of what you did during that month. You dug more deeply into yourself than any point since you acknowleged your social anxiety. You reconnected with old friends. You made some interior design improvements. You admitted things publically and privately that you severely struggled to admit to yourself before, and in doing so, faced your greatest fear.

Take a look at your one year goals. Did they help to influence the direction you're going in now? Did you get that CompTIA A+? Are you working, either for yourself or someone else? If the answer to that last one is still no, you really, really need to look into becoming self employed - even if you already tried and failed.

How's your confidence and your public speaking? It's better, right? I mean, you must have been standing in front of so many people at GalaCon. Maybe you ended up MC-ing a panel - is it on YouTube anywhere? If you're still at your voluntary position, have you moved more into a teaching role? Are you hiding behind the mask as something more than a joke - or are you unafraid of showing yourself a bit more?

How's your cash flow? You holding up all right in that area? Are you still saving up? Are you more willing to spend some on yourself now, while still being generous to others in need?

Have you kept to the diet and exercise plan? What exercise rung are you up to now? It'd be about 33 if you've kept to going up one a week, but you're meant to find somewhere comfortable on the lifetime ladder. What's your weight like, your ratio of neck circumference to waist circumference (it was 16in:36in)?

Have you kept in contact with your friends? Whether the answer is yes or no, go say hi to them now for me.

Have you got the New Xbox? Have you developed some game prototypes? If there's a new equivalent to Xbox Live Indie Games, have you considered polishing one of them up into a product people might actually want to buy?

Are you living in harmony, harmony always? :v: (Sorry.) Still, it's useful to look back at how much your life now is aligned with those core values. Was I right about your purpose being to unlock potential?

Have you done some of those things you wanted to do? Have you added new ones to your Life Handbook as you've thought of them?

How do you view me, all these months back in the past? More importantly, how do you view you? Because whatever's happened or hasn't happened, I'm proud of you.

Charles
15/05/2015
:allears:
PonderSketch wrote: ↑
Wed May 15, 2013 10:23 pm
My eyes tend to go up or up and to the left. That's where my memory's stored? Neato.
Yep, that's the part of your brain that gets triggered.
Also, thanks for the eye contact advice. I imagine it'll be easier to practice with people you are just passing by, as opposed to people you're having a face to face conversation with.
Public transport works great too!
I would certainly be game for something like that. More arting means more getting more better! :v:
Aracat wrote: ↑
Thu May 16, 2013 12:25 am
:ponder: Maybe.
Sweet! :party:

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 5:09 am

Hey peeps, last challenge! :awesomedash:

Image

Day 30: This Story has Never Ended

Yesterday you wrote yourself a letter which will arrive six months from now? What did you write in your letter? What did you project yourself to be like after 6 months?

When you write a letter to your future you, it gets you thinking about your future. What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want to have accomplished? What legacy do you want to have built? What do you want to be pursuing by then?
It brings you a clarity important for achieving your goals.

Now that you've written your letter, the next step is to bring that vision to life! Remember the emotions and thoughts that you experienced as you were writing your letter yesterday. Etch your vision as clearly as you can in your mind, because that's who you are going to be a year from now! Go all out and live an amazing life! Go all out and pursue your dreams. Live like you've never lived before! Push yourself beyond your boundaries and embrace life on a whole new level!
Whoooooo! :party:

When the day comes to open your letter, read it with fresh eyes and reflect and review on how your past 6 months have been.

Now let's get to the very last challenge :)

Running Start

So here we here we are, at the end of a whole month of challenge. Can you believe it? I certainly can't. In fact it has yet to hit me at the time of writing :v:
Let's take a moment here :allears:

Okay I'm done!

We sure did some amazing things didn't we? We assessed our current lives on day 2, visualized what we wanted our life to be and what we wanted to do most on Days 3 and 4. We reviewed our lives on day 8, had a look at our habits on day 10, faced our frustrations on day 11.

We did some home improvement on days 13 and 14, looked at what we were grateful for on day 16. Day 17 and 18 were big days in which we discovered who we truly are and what we find most important in life. Then on day 19 we documented all of that in our very own handbook!

Next on day 20 we looked at the people around us and how we interact with them, then we called up old friends on day 21. We started cultivating a new habit on day 22, spread kindness on day 23, expanded our comfort zones on day 23 and levelled up our skills on day 25.

Then we took a little break.

Finally we made our bucket list on day 27 and then we let go of the things holding us back on day 28. Yesterday we wrote a letter to the person who we'll become.

And now we're at the end of it all. Congratulations, you've done an amazing job this challenge and you can be proud of yourself! :party:

Along the way we've come to new realizations big and small and rediscovered things we thought we had lost. Deep emotions were experienced and tears have been shed.
We've learned important lessons, critical lessons we need to capture as we move ahead.

This may be the final day, but is it truly the end? Or the start of something new and exciting? Are you excited cuz I'm excited :excite:

Today we'll be reflecting on everything we've learned in the past 30 days. Then we'll reassess our lives with our life wheel, the second task that truly kicked off our journey.

Last, but certainly not least, we'll be planning for the next stage of our life.

Task: Create your plan ahead

1: Reflect

Review your answers to all the tasks this month, from day 1 till yesterday's task on day 29. Look at what you've written and reflect upon what you've accomplished with each day's task.

What are your biggest lessons you've learned in the past 30 days?

2: Reassess

Reassess your life via the life wheel from Day 1. Give yourself a score for each of the 11 categories, redraw your life wheel.
Compare this against the scores you gave yourself on Day 1.

Are your new scores higher, lower or the same? Why?

3: Plan ahead

What do you want to accomplish for the next 3 months so that they'll be the best 3 months of your life ever? Refer to your 1 year goals on your Life Map as a guide.

What actions will you take to achieve these goals moving forward?

Integrate the action steps in your to-do list so that you'll always remember, and commit to a specific date and time where possible.

Add the action plan above as one of the items to review in your weekly review session.

Reflect on Today's Task

What did you learn today? What insights have you gained?

Last Day of Your Action Plan

What are you gonna do on day 30? Go and do it with grace, excellence, awesome, joy and all that good stuff!

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Hi. (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 12:16 pm

Day 28

My writing isn't too bad in this one.
Image

Nightsong

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Nightsong » Thu May 16, 2013 12:42 pm

I know everyone else is coming to the end of the challenge, but I just finished day seventeen. It took me most of the day but it seems my most important values are resilience, decency, diversity, love and happiness. Tomorrow is call of the cutie mark day and I'm so worried all I'll be able to write is 'nothing' over and over again...

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Momo (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 1:15 pm

Don't worry, Nightsong. This thread is going to stay open until everyone finishes.

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Venusy (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 2:35 pm

Nightsong wrote: ↑
Thu May 16, 2013 12:42 pm
I know everyone else is coming to the end of the challenge, but I just finished day seventeen. It took me most of the day but it seems my most important values are resilience, decency, diversity, love and happiness. Tomorrow is call of the cutie mark day and I'm so worried all I'll be able to write is 'nothing' over and over again...
I took a really long time with those two as well. I'm sure you'll think of something though. :)

Day 30:
Image

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Thu May 16, 2013 2:53 pm

Nightsong wrote: ↑
Thu May 16, 2013 12:42 pm
I know everyone else is coming to the end of the challenge, but I just finished day seventeen. It took me most of the day but it seems my most important values are resilience, decency, diversity, love and happiness. Tomorrow is call of the cutie mark day and I'm so worried all I'll be able to write is 'nothing' over and over again...
You've dug in pretty deep and unearthed some gems, just keep digging and you'll find something even more precious :)

Don't worry if you don't get that "A-Ha!" moment right off the bat, it's about the journey and not the end goal. Keep going, don't give up!
Venusy wrote: ↑
Thu May 16, 2013 2:35 pm
Day 30:
Image
Woooohoooo :party:

Congratulations Venusy!

Aracat

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Aracat » Thu May 16, 2013 10:21 pm

30 days, 42 pages in the notebook and Image later, here we are.

Day 30:
Reflect
I like reading over stuff from the past so this has been a more or less continuous process for me. I've learned, or at least done something about several areas that I feel I was/am weakest in. The challenge made me apply rational thought to some of my behaviors, and I wasn't always happy with what I found, but sometimes I was.

Return of the lifewheel
Changes:
Job: -1
Health: +1
Spirituality: N/a -> 10
Self image: -2

A lot of my scores may not have changed, but this is deceptive - the reasons behind them sure have.
  • The challenges, along with some other things, made me realize I'm not quite as happy with my job as I thought. This is what I get for thinking about what I would like to be doing, but the job's not that bad and it pays the bills - there's no arguing with that.
  • I wasn't doing as well in health as I thought, but now I'm paying attention and have a Plan.
  • Thinking about the first lifewheel put me in touch with my (lack of) spirituality by forcing me to think about it instead of ignoring it.
  • The challenges also took me down a couple notches, like I predicted on day 0. It's nothing too bad, but I kinda liked having my head in the clouds. Other stuff outside the challenge has also had a pretty severe negative effect.[/list:u]

    The future
    None of this is firm enough to plant calendar events, but I think a few of the things on my list are going to get, shall we say, taken care of... :evil:

    The challenges have raised more than a few questions that I still don't have good or even any answers to. Some of those questions I really didn't want to ask. I do have a broader awareness of my life in general thanks to the challenges, and I'm probably better off in general.

    My only regret is that Isaak is on a different continent, which is most definitely out of hug range. Thank you, Isaak, for leading us on this Interesting journey. :allears:

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Fri May 17, 2013 12:26 am

Day 28:

Image

Only two more to go! Image

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Venusy (?) » Fri May 17, 2013 12:39 am

Aracat wrote: ↑
Thu May 16, 2013 10:21 pm
My only regret is that Isaak is on a different continent, which is most definitely out of hug range.
Don't worry, I can give him one for you. :horse:

Kirinith

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Kirinith » Fri May 17, 2013 4:35 am

I know it's way too late by this point, but between going through the throes of graduation and trying to put everything in order, I wasn't able to work up the time or the nerve to post here yet. Reading through this thread has been a wonderful experience, and it's inspiring to know that so many others are having the same problems I am. Now that I have more spare time to throw around, I'm definitely interested in giving these steps a go myself, and I really wanted to thank Isaak for putting all this together, and everyone who took part in this for all being such cool dudes. :allears:

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Momo (?) » Fri May 17, 2013 12:22 pm

Kirinith wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 4:35 am
I know it's way too late by this point
Not true. You should go for it! :yay:

Nightsong

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Nightsong » Fri May 17, 2013 4:02 pm

Well, my first attempt at day eighteen (cutie mark crusade) got metaphorical fast.

Why am I here? What is my purpose?

I have no purpose. I have no reason for being here. I am nothing.
To make my parents happy?
To experience life?
To hide how empty I am. To pretend to be a real person with hopes and dreams and passions and a purpose.
To build a bridge over this hole inside me and get to the other side. To find out who I am without the black hole of depression and self-hatred swallowing everything I try to fill it with.
To walk with firm ground beneath my feet - a sense of self-worth.
To nourish the real me that's at the bottom of that black hole.
To grow past the confines of the black hole into a fully grown tree that has a place in the landscape.

The only bit that had me in tears was facing this empty, unfillable emptiness inside me.

Besides which, I just don't know what any of that means practically. Why couldn't I just write down 'read a lot of books' or something? I'm going to take another crack at it in a minute.

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Fri May 17, 2013 4:41 pm

Aracat wrote:My only regret is that Isaak is on a different continent, which is most definitely out of hug range.
Where do you live? :-I

Srs: I want to travel around the States for a couple'o months some time in the future, meeting people I wanna meet and finding out why the US of A works the way it works. Because hot damn your country is so fascinating!
Venusy wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 12:39 am
Don't worry, I can give him one for you. :horse:
I always wanted to go to a chiropractor :-I
PonderSketch wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 12:26 am
Only two more to go! Image
Go Ponder Go :yay: !
Kirinith wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 4:35 am
I know it's way too late by this point, but between going through the throes of graduation and trying to put everything in order, I wasn't able to work up the time or the nerve to post here yet. Reading through this thread has been a wonderful experience, and it's inspiring to know that so many others are having the same problems I am. Now that I have more spare time to throw around, I'm definitely interested in giving these steps a go myself, and I really wanted to thank Isaak for putting all this together, and everyone who took part in this for all being such cool dudes. :allears:
Go for it! It's never too late or early :party:
Thank you, Isaak, for leading us on this Interesting journey. :allears:
:)

I'll make a bigger post regarding this later.
Nightsong wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 4:02 pm
Well, my first attempt at day eighteen (cutie mark crusade) got metaphorical fast.

Why am I here? What is my purpose?

I have no purpose. I have no reason for being here. I am nothing.
To make my parents happy?
To experience life?
To hide how empty I am. To pretend to be a real person with hopes and dreams and passions and a purpose.
To build a bridge over this hole inside me and get to the other side. To find out who I am without the black hole of depression and self-hatred swallowing everything I try to fill it with.
To walk with firm ground beneath my feet - a sense of self-worth.
To nourish the real me that's at the bottom of that black hole.
To grow past the confines of the black hole into a fully grown tree that has a place in the landscape.

The only bit that had me in tears was facing this empty, unfillable emptiness inside me.

Besides which, I just don't know what any of that means practically. Why couldn't I just write down 'read a lot of books' or something? I'm going to take another crack at it in a minute.
:allears:

Keep at it, you're doing amazing!

doodlesplat

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by doodlesplat » Fri May 17, 2013 4:53 pm

Nightsong wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 4:02 pm
Well, my first attempt at day eighteen (cutie mark crusade) got metaphorical fast.
Sometimes it is right before you, but you may have to sort it out from all the other things in front of you. Other times, it is inside or under something, which requires a bit of digging around. And yet other times, it is entirely outside of your present knowledge, and finding it means expanding your view to entirely new areas.
:-D

Purpose is a devilishly difficult question to answer. It is a bit of an unfair question because it implicitly requires to you answer all the other questions about yourself first. Don't upset yourself too much if you don't have the full answer today; you can build up to it in steps.
:fancyhat:

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Fri May 17, 2013 11:38 pm

Just wrapped up Day 29. That wasn't as time-consuming as most of the other challenges have been. I wrote a letter to myself in Word, printed it out, sealed it in an envelope, and taped it in my wall calendar down in November. Even if I forget about it, I'll be reminded on Nov. 1st. While it mainly concerned the things I've already been sharing here, I went into a bit more personal detail in it than I would be comfortable posting on a public forum. I might be mistaken, but I believe this is the first Challenge I haven't posted here. Kind of an odd feeling.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the future. Having something like this waiting for me half a year down the road offers some additional motivation. Current Ponder has some high while still being realistic expectations for Future Ponder, and by the time I become him, I don't want to have let what would then be Past Ponder down. I tend not to think that far ahead, which has led to my current life. I need to continue keeping the future in mind, and hopefully this will help me do so. If it works, I'll probably continue to write notes to myself half a year down the line, giving myself new subgoals to strive towards in order to get me closer to achieving the big ones.

Future Ponder might even be re-reading this thread. If so, Howdy! Did you make these six months as FUCKIN' RAD as you planned to? If so, great! Keep it up! Set new goals, write another letter! If not, have you at least made some progress towards your one-year goals? If, again, not, then why the hell not? If you are still having problems, it's important to identify those problems and then figure out how to move past them. Look through the Challenges again for ways to do so.

One more day to go, and it's going to be momentous. Was considering doing it tonight, but I want to tackle it fresh. Even after doing whatever the last challenge is, I'll still be referring to my notebook to keep reminding myself of what I'm doing and why. I really want to become the person I described yesterday, and I hope I have the strength to take the steps necessary to get there. Thank you for putting this together, Isaak. You are an awesome dude. Image It's been getting me to think about the important things, which, unfortunately, I wasn't very good at before.

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Sat May 18, 2013 7:11 am

PonderSketch wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 11:38 pm
I'm cautiously optimistic about the future. Having something like this waiting for me half a year down the road offers some additional motivation. Current Ponder has some high while still being realistic expectations for Future Ponder, and by the time I become him, I don't want to have let what would then be Past Ponder down. I tend not to think that far ahead, which has led to my current life. I need to continue keeping the future in mind, and hopefully this will help me do so. If it works, I'll probably continue to write notes to myself half a year down the line, giving myself new subgoals to strive towards in order to get me closer to achieving the big ones.
Nice! I find myself turning the pages of the notebook every now and then and recapturing what I felt like writing things down.

One more day to go, and it's going to be momentous. Was considering doing it tonight, but I want to tackle it fresh. Even after doing whatever the last challenge is, I'll still be referring to my notebook to keep reminding myself of what I'm doing and why. I really want to become the person I described yesterday, and I hope I have the strength to take the steps necessary to get there.
Thank you for putting this together, Isaak. You are an awesome dude. Image It's been getting me to think about the important things, which, unfortunately, I wasn't very good at before.
Thank you! These past 30 days have been a pretty wild ride :)

I'll admit that in the beginning I asked myself "what the heck did I get myself into?", but I found my groove pretty quickly and managed to balance writing the challenges, doing them and everything else in life pretty well (even though I'm still one behind, gonna do the last one after finishing this post).
I learned tons from doing the challenges again and I revisited some areas of myself I thought didn't need revisiting, but sorely needed it. I learned a lot from running the challenge on the whole too, things like managing my time and saying "no", to deep stuff like jerrylee triggering a huge and profound realization early in the challenge and me being confronted with the fact that one solution doesn't fit all.

I got to know myself a lot better and added a whole lot of lenses through which I can view the world to my deck.

Thanks everyone who joined and followed the challenge and for putting up with my lapses every now and then.
Thanks to Momar for making this challenge so big and wonderful and for believing in it.
Thanks jerrylee for triggering something profound.
Thanks Venusy for the future backbreaker.
Thanks PonderSketch for being an inspiration.
Thanks doodlesplat for helping out and for the extremely long string of ongoing messages.
Thanks Nightsong for friggin' joining the forums because of this challenge because wow!
Thanks Aracat :)
Thanks Lhet for asking for feedback :D
Hi Hi, thanks! :allears:
Yo ScionVyse, where you at? Thanking you too!

Thanks to the person who will point out the people I missed :modesty:

Demeh

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Demeh » Sat May 18, 2013 7:18 am

Congratulations and compliments to everyone who has completed the challenge or will complete it in the near future. You deserve to be happy, and having started (and went on with) this challenge means that you also want to be happy. Keep on rocking!

Also congratulations and compliments to Isaak, who has taken a lot of his personal time to try his best to make other people happy. You're a champ, sir :golfclop:

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Venusy (?) » Sat May 18, 2013 7:53 am

Isaak wrote: ↑
Fri May 17, 2013 4:41 pm
Srs: I want to travel around the States for a couple'o months some time in the future, meeting people I wanna meet and finding out why the US of A works the way it works. Because hot damn your country is so fascinating!
I would totally join you in this if I had the money and no other commitments. :wantitneedit:

I have to say thanks for running this and for everything you've put into it, hopefully you and everyone else has got as much out of this as I have. :flutterunsmith:

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Sat May 18, 2013 10:34 am

Isaak wrote: ↑
Sat May 18, 2013 7:11 am
Thanks to the person who will point out the people I missed :modesty:
Thank you Perpetual Lurker for being the reason Isaak brought up the challenge in the first place, and I'm sorry you didn't have the time to devote to the daily challenges. I'm glad it sounds like you're starting to get a hold of things anyway. We'll all be here to offer guidance and support when you need it.

edit: Whoops, sorry. Well, know that it won't always be that way. Eventually you'll find a direction you want to move in, and at that point I hope you come back and give the challenges another look. Until that point, keep hanging in there.
Last edited by Ponder on Sat May 18, 2013 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Perpetual Motion (?) » Sat May 18, 2013 10:53 am

I had the time. I just can't answer the questions they pose. I think I'd be doing these challenges a disservice is I just wrote "nothing" on every other page. Sorry. :fluttersmith:

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Sun May 19, 2013 12:34 am

Argh, my hand/wrist. I just finished reviewing each of the previous challenges, which filled up three and a half pages. I am not up to redrawing my life wheel tonight. I will finish the final challenge earlier in the day tomorrow than I typically work on them, that's a promise. For the time being, I'm giving my writing and drawing hand the rest of the night off. :nngh:

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Hi. (?) » Sun May 19, 2013 12:37 am

Isaak wrote: ↑
Sat May 18, 2013 7:11 am
Hi Hi, thanks! :allears:
Nono, thank *you* Isaak! You did more work here than any of us did! :party:

If you ever find your way to Vancouver again, dinner's on me!

ScionVyse

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by ScionVyse » Sun May 19, 2013 1:38 am

Isaak wrote: ↑
Sat May 18, 2013 7:11 am
Yo ScionVyse, where you at? Thanking you too!
Abluh? Aaah I'm awake I'm awake! :twonk:

I haven't been posting my stuff here too often, but it's done! I just generally don't have the time to do much anymore. :-/


But anyways, thanks a lot for this Isaak! You're awesome and this challenge was awesome! It was a good push that I really needed, and it's already done a bunch for me!


Also thanks doodlesplat, thanks for critiquing some of my music. If someone who has really no reason to just "be nice" and lie to make me feel better says it's got potential, then I'm sure it does. :flutterunsmith: I haven't been able to do much recording with my new job though. :gonkity:

Nightsong

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Nightsong » Sun May 19, 2013 5:28 am

Adding my thanks to Isaak :allears:

I'm still stuck on day eighteen. I can't think of anything non-metaphorical that I'm here to do. I'm here because my parents decided to have a kid. That's all. Everything is random. I'm not here for any special reason. I just am.

It's very frustrating. I was so hoping this day would provide some important answers for my life and I'm getting nothing.

doodlesplat

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by doodlesplat » Sun May 19, 2013 9:27 am

Nightsong wrote: ↑
Sun May 19, 2013 5:28 am
I'm still stuck on day eighteen. I can't think of anything non-metaphorical that I'm here to do. I'm here because my parents decided to have a kid. That's all. Everything is random. I'm not here for any special reason. I just am.

It's very frustrating. I was so hoping this day would provide some important answers for my life and I'm getting nothing.
I feel you're trying to seek intrinsic purpose in life and, using your knowledge about the world and how you arrived at this present moment, concluding that there is none. That is okay. It's alright to hold that view. Some people live carefree and with no greater purpose and it never bothers them. For those who do desire a purpose but don't have one, though, it can be depressing...

BUT, believing there is no intrinsic purpose in life doesn't prevent you from having a purpose. Granted, it must therefore be arbitrary. But that's okay too. Technically, someone else can tell you what it should be, but I'm going to be biased against that idea. It is your life and you are free to decide what you want to do with it. No one but you can give yourself a true purpose. The challenge of day eighteen, then, is to go about creating this self-purpose--ideally using some of the stuff from previous days to help you. Yes, it is scary to be wholly responsible for the outcome of an entire life.

I know the title of Day 18 says "discover". That's kind of misleading. It makes it seem like it already exists somewhere and you just have to find it, whereas the act of 'finding' is actually developing it within yourself. Some people do feel like they 'find' it, in that they subconsciously develop it internally, and 'discover' it only by stumbling into the realization some random time later.

I hope some of this is helpful and maybe you can approach day 18 again, from a creative angle, without this expectation of 'discovery'. If not, that's fine too--what I've said isn't a proven truth or anything, it is just one of many different perspectives on the same existential problem.
:flutterunsmith:

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Sun May 19, 2013 3:56 pm

Demeh wrote: ↑
Sat May 18, 2013 7:18 am
Also congratulations and compliments to Isaak, who has taken a lot of his personal time to try his best to make other people happy. You're a champ, sir :golfclop:
Thank you, we should hang sometime again :)
Venusy wrote: ↑
Sat May 18, 2013 7:53 am
I would totally join you in this if I had the money and no other commitments. :wantitneedit:

I have to say thanks for running this and for everything you've put into it, hopefully you and everyone else has got as much out of this as I have. :flutterunsmith:
It's going to take a while before I can, but I'm in no rush :)

And I got more than I ever thought I would get!
[quote="Perpetual post_id=21837 time=1368888789 user_id=77]I had the time. I just can't answer the questions they pose. I think I'd be doing these challenges a disservice is I just wrote "nothing" on every other page. Sorry. :fluttersmith:[/quote]
Thanks Perpetual Lurker :)

Don't feel down, this challenge just wasn't the right one for you and I was wrong to think it would be. It's all on me, so don't worry. You taught me a lot.
Hi! wrote: ↑
Sun May 19, 2013 12:37 am
Nono, thank *you* Isaak! You did more work here than any of us did! :party:

If you ever find your way to Vancouver again, dinner's on me!
Haha, I guess I did. It's easy to lose perspective on it. Thanks for reminding me.
And going to Vancouver again is deffo in the pipeline, that city is still one of my loves :allears:
ScionVyse wrote: ↑
Sun May 19, 2013 1:38 am
Abluh? Aaah I'm awake I'm awake! :twonk:

I haven't been posting my stuff here too often, but it's done! I just generally don't have the time to do much anymore. :-/

But anyways, thanks a lot for this Isaak! You're awesome and this challenge was awesome! It was a good push that I really needed, and it's already done a bunch for me!
:yay: I'm so happy for you!
Nightsong wrote: ↑
Sun May 19, 2013 5:28 am
Adding my thanks to Isaak :allears:

I'm still stuck on day eighteen. I can't think of anything non-metaphorical that I'm here to do. I'm here because my parents decided to have a kid. That's all. Everything is random. I'm not here for any special reason. I just am.

It's very frustrating. I was so hoping this day would provide some important answers for my life and I'm getting nothing.
:)

What doodlesplat said, basically. Don't feel bad if you don't have the answer even after a dozen or so tries, maybe writing isn't the best way for you to go about it. Maybe you need to stop digging for a bit and continue experiencing life. Maybe the challenge is all wrong* :v: You will answer that question.

Come back to the question after a few days, or a week and continue down the path that speaks to you the most.

Don't worry, you can do this, you can totally do this!

-------------------

*this brings me to a bit of research that popped in my mind while new stuff is stuffening:

What did you think of the challenge and how it was run? What went right? What went wrong and could be better? What kind of advice can you give to improve possible future challenges?

These questions are open to anyone: the people who participated, to the people who observed, to people just skimming the thread. Any feedback is welcome!

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Sun May 19, 2013 4:51 pm

Day 30!
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Whew. That was certainly something. I feel a lot better now than I did at the beginning, and I'm glad I took part. That doesn't mean that things are going to be easy from now on, not at all.

I've learned how to deal with some kinds of problems, how to set future goals, how to break tasks down into manageable chunks, and how to keep an eye on myself. I still need to put effort into improving my life. A lot of it. But that prospect doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I still need to get better at policing myself, but I'm already keeping better track of how I spend my time than I did before.

Thank you, Isaak, for taking the time to run us all through this. You've earned a free doodle+background or floaty-head caricature, PM me with details as to what you'd like. :pinkietoot:

As for how the challenge could be changed or improved, it asks some big questions, and that's a good thing, but as someone mentioned early in the thread, some of these activities are too big and time-consuming for people without a lot of free time. A light version of the challenge could help some people out, with some of the bigger activities broken up into multiple days. Another issue was that while some of the questions being asked early on were important, they didn't work for everyone. I'm afraid I can't offer any help in how to fix that, though. I don't know what different approaches you would take to reach the same kinds of answers. Still, you did a lot for us, and it's immensely appreciated. Keep on being awesome.
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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Venusy (?) » Sun May 19, 2013 6:27 pm

The problem with some of them is that they take a while not because of the complexity of the challenge, but because you're digging really deeply into parts of yourself, and getting answers back from that is a lengthy and draining process.

Looking back, I think one of the things people struggled with is that establishing the goals came before anything else - which needs people to have a sense of direction about where they want their life to go in. Some people need to establish the really fundamental sense of who they are first - the life wheel, what they stand for, what they do now that might be holding them back, etc.. That might help them recognize what their life would be like if they had infinite resources, and things that they'd want to accomplish before they die. Those can help give a sense of direction, which then allows them to establish what they'd need to do to get there - long term at first, scaling down to think about the short term ones. The full challenge would have to last more than 30 days - an amount which is just introspection, followed by 30 days of doing the short term goals they've established.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and this might not help those people regardless. :pinkieshrug:

doodlesplat

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by doodlesplat » Mon May 20, 2013 3:21 am

I agree with Venusy. This challenge's structure tried to keep everything compact. It also tried to cover everything: introspection, planning, and action. But in order to make use of all 30 days for the action, some of the planning and action was queued up earlier before the introspection was complete. A proper treatment would take more than 30 days.

Demeh

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Demeh » Mon May 20, 2013 7:05 am

Guys, a full challenge would take your whole life :flutterunsmith:

At least, that's how I see it :-P

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Hi. (?) » Mon May 20, 2013 1:43 pm

Day 17
I said I'd come back to this one, and I wanted to do it before the last two days.

It's a pretty long one, and kinda heavy, but I decided to post it anyway.
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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Hi. (?) » Mon May 20, 2013 1:58 pm

Day 29

Your letter, ' Dear Future Me,' is on its way to November 20th, 2013.

Not posting it, because a letter to my future self is about as personal a thing as I can think of, but the long and the short of it was a page or so of reflection on the last few months, with me looking forward to what's to come.

Ponder

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Ponder » Mon May 20, 2013 6:49 pm

Cool stuff, Hi. Yeah, the letter to your future self kind of sets the stage for you to continue on as you have been after the challenge ends, instead of falling back into behaviors from before you started. I was afraid that once the 30 days were over and I didn't have it to shape the rest of my day around, I would start slipping again almost immediately. Knowing that half a year down the line you're going to have to measure up to your current expectations is a pretty powerful motivator to keep making positive changes.

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Lhet (?) » Mon May 20, 2013 7:01 pm

Still finishing up, and will summarize and post the last few days in a bit.

Bit of feedback about the whole thing though: A lot of these were super time consuming, and it was really hard to catch up after missing a couple weekends spent away from my computer (especially considering the extra time spent pursuing new goals/habits). Also the challenge really didn't really support catching up (A lot of challenges could only really be started in the morning, almost every one asked about how yesterday went). Some of the challenges I enjoyed the most were the 'GO DO A THING' challenges (Random act of kindness, step outside comfort zone, declutter).

Overall, it's really been quite awesome, this has kept me very busy this month, and I've really learned a lot. If there's a followup (which there should be), I would suggest perhaps a longer term (indefinite?) thing with a single, simple goal each week (e.g. 3 random acts of kindness, go find an amazing view and take a picture, learn 3 new people's names, etc).

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by !saak (?) » Tue May 21, 2013 5:02 pm

Thanks for the feedback, it will be put to good use :)

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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Quanta (?) » Wed May 22, 2013 3:13 am

Lhet wrote: ↑
Mon May 20, 2013 7:01 pm
Bit of feedback about the whole thing though: A lot of these were super time consuming, and it was really hard to catch up after missing a couple weekends spent away from my computer (especially considering the extra time spent pursuing new goals/habits). Also the challenge really didn't really support catching up (A lot of challenges could only really be started in the morning, almost every one asked about how yesterday went).
This is what happened to me, sort of: I got about 3 days in and then got sick for about a week and felt like I fell too far behind, given that each activity takes a good chunk of time (30 minutes or more, depending on what's involved) and I missed, like, 7 of them in a row. It's funny 'cuz I told my therapist "I'm participating in a thing and we're doing it together as a group and it's gonna be great. :-I" and then started to feel sick after I left his office. :v:

I hope you do another one though, Isaak. I want a second chance! :sweetiefrown:
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Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Momo (?) » Wed May 22, 2013 2:39 pm

FYI, so people don't lose track of this thread, it will be unstickied and returned to The Fence Post on Friday.

Also, can I get a list of people that are still going, and what day they're on? This thread is going to remain open until everyone who wants to finish is finished.

Nightsong

Re: 30 Days of Life Improvement Challenge

Post by Nightsong » Wed May 22, 2013 3:43 pm

Momar wrote: ↑
Wed May 22, 2013 2:39 pm
FYI, so people don't lose track of this thread, it will be unstickied and returned to The Fence Post on Friday.

Also, can I get a list of people that are still going, and what day they're on? This thread is going to remain open until everyone who wants to finish is finished.
Related - I'm on day nineteen (took a few days off because I got busy). I also took another crack at day eighteen today and still couldn't come up with anything. I wrote over a page of things I could do with my life, and had absolutely no emotional reaction to any of them. I know I can skip this day and move on to other days, but it's really bugging me that I do not have an answer to this. In fact, it's been bugging me since long before the challenge. Ever since I left university I have felt like my life is purposeless (and therefore worthless) and it really upsets me. I don't really know what to do about it.

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