Overview of Challenging Yourself
There is more that goes into challenging yourself than a list of suggestions for taking action. It’s easy to find examples of how to challenge yourself, but those lists don’t necessarily create a foundation. They don’t tell you how to challenge yourself to create success.
While it’s important to have opportunities for spontaneity and fun, when we seek or crave an authentic change, there are some things we should keep in mind.
Here we will be addressing challenging yourself for personal growth. In addition, we are often faced with challenging instances during everyday life, even some that are out of our control. The points outlined here pertain to making changes in both situations.
In This Article
3 Things to Consider Before Challenging Yourself
If you’re seeking a long-term change rather than a spontaneous result, it’s important to take some steps before leaning into anything specific.
Even if you’re not a planner by nature, it’s good to think about these steps prior to moving into a challenge. This is especially true if it’s a change that is desired for a specific and important purpose.
A little prep can lay helpful groundwork. The right outlook can assist with foundational steps used to challenge yourself.
Be Honest with Yourself
A great first step is to ask yourself why you feel the need for a challenge. Often, we jump into things with both feet then feel like we’re drowning.
Sometimes, you can even become disappointed with lack of progress or change. It’s important to understand what is driving your thoughts for change.
Besides the desire for personal growth, we often experience failure, sickness, or grief. Each of these delivers its own weight. Any one of these can come up without warning and throw a wrench in our plans and everyday life.
As we struggle, we often reach the point that a change must take place to move out of a particular realm. In these instances, the right mindset is important for bringing lasting results.
Is Your Change Spontaneous?
This question is important because it defines the reason for your challenge.
In the case of spontaneous challenges, the outcome may be fun, refreshing, and a temporary experience. If this is the case, the expectation is not necessarily for longevity. This is when a list of ideas to challenge yourself may come in handy.
For example, if your desire is to take a trip or go skydiving for the experience, there is not an expectation of a long-lasting event.
If your plan is to challenge yourself to get a degree or change jobs, there is a much different outcome expected.
So, defining the type of challenge you’re looking for is important.
You can make small changes for fun, or to be spontaneous; however, lasting change runs deeper. When handled correctly, it starts from within.
The planning and oversight of steps can help determine your progress.
Assess Your Goals
As with new diets, fitness plans, jobs, or almost any new challenge in your life, if you haven’t prepared, you may not see the long-term impact you want or perhaps need.
Just as important as determining the reason, and defining the terms, assessing your goals creates a better outlook for expectations.
Once you realize why you want to challenge yourself, you can more easily set realistic goals.
The foundational reasons are important just as are the plans you set. Realizing what you desire to achieve—and why you need or want it— helps to create an action plan.
3 Thoughts About Movement When Challenging Yourself
Once you establish the foundation regarding challenging yourself, it’s important to look at how to take forward steps.
Along with planning beforehand, it’s important to stay mindful of what’s going on during your efforts.
Here are a few thoughts that can bring greater outcomes when you want to challenge yourself.
Perspective is Key
We looked at steps you can take before making a move to prepare for the challenge. One key point is to make sure that your mindset is not focused on only one single way to make change happen.
Challenging yourself is not only about taking on new assignments, tasks, or pushing to do better. The view you take when beginning these ideas is also important for the outcome.
Keeping a perspective of optimism, while ensuring you’ve laid sturdy groundwork, helps create greater steps forward.
After putting a plan in place, try moving with the perspective that you intend to make changes, but also stay open-minded if it doesn’t happen the way you expected.
Altering your steps is likely part of the reality that takes place. If your perspective is one that accepts these changes, you are much more likely to succeed.
Turn Your Thoughts into Action Steps
Having a strong mindset is important, and it can lead to great progress when challenging yourself.
Any type of movement that you initiate has previously been a thought in your mind. Being mindful of situations, and assessing the changes taking place, can encourage greater action steps.
Movement toward our goals is the desire, but often if things don’t work, we fail to assess what is actually taking place.
It’s easy to allow your thoughts, especially emotional thinking, to drive your actions without considering what’s going on. However, with increased control comes the benefit of a more settled outcome.
Being committed to recognizing your thoughts—and turning them into viable action steps—helps promote a better understanding of what you can choose to do when challenging yourself. It’s also helpful to realize the truth about emotions when taking steps.
Assess Your Comfort Level
Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone isn’t necessarily the best challenge if that is your only thought.
I do teach people that if you’re comfortable then you likely are not growing. However, this should not be the only reason that encourages you. If this is the case, it’s much harder to maintain longevity when challenging yourself.
Correct perspective and assessing your thoughts are good ideas to add to assessing your comfort level for a situation.
When looking at all three, you’re much more likely to have a better—and more consistent—outcome than only trying to change your comfort level.
It’s easy to feel defeated if you step out of your comfort zone and don’t succeed. This often discourages continued effort when challenging yourself.
Daily intentions are a great way to stay focused and maintain steps in the duration of your efforts. Using this method often help create greater success.
3 Ways to Stay Successful When Challenging Yourself
We’ve addressed groundwork that’s helpful prior to challenging yourself. In addition, we looked at what to do when moving forward during your challenges. Next, we will discuss how to maintain forward progress when challenging yourself.
It’s not uncommon to feel stuck or get discouraged when we don’t see the progress we want when trying to make a change.
This defeated mentality often kills optimism and next steps instead of helping us meet goals. Once a lack of desire starts, it’s much harder to spark the flame again.
Let’s look at some ways to keep moving during your challenges.
Be a Continuous Learner
It has been shown that mentally challenging yourself can be beneficial. I believe that it’s a great foundation for actions of change and how they happen.
If we remain open-minded and hungry to learning new information and techniques, it allows a more positive approach and an alternate view of failure.
Not only does this encourage our personal growth, but it magnifies an optimistic perspective.
Committing to continuous learning also expands the confidence others have in you. Whether challenging yourself personally or professionally, gaining new knowledge and sharing this viewpoint displays your willingness to contribute.
Continuous learning increases conviction and creates better outcomes than attempting to move into new territory without this growth.
Dig Deep for Determination
Even with planned action steps, we often get to a point where we feel things aren’t moving as we would like them to. This is when continued learning can help.
Along with an optimistic perspective, the two are great tools. Even so, we sometimes must dig deeper to get real results.
Perseverance in application when challenging yourself is important.
Check out this article on motivation and inspiration that explains how the two are different and how to use them to your advantage.
Challenging yourself can be tiring and create exasperation and even temptation to quit. However, staying focused and determined can keep you moving forward.
It helps you better understand your role as a leader and influencer.
This call to action is usually more successful if groundwork has been laid prior to attempting difficult challenges.
Just as was mentioned earlier, it’s important to understand why you want to make changes. Then, as you move, you can assess your progress and mindset to help you stay determined when things get tough.
Aimlessly moving does not usually create the long-term effects we desire.
Replace a Bad Habit with a Challenge for Longevity
We’ve seen that certain thoughts can mute your success when challenging yourself. One area that creates difficulty for your challenges is continuous negative habits. They are called habits for a reason.
We often mindlessly continue to take the same steps without a second thought.
It can be hard to break these habits and move to a better outcome. One way to stay mindful of negative habits is to replace them with a challenge.
For example, if snacking is a habit you would like to change, consider challenging yourself. You could journal optimistic thoughts about succeeding when feeling the urge to snack. This encourages your focus on a healthier outcome.
Another example is family gatherings or situations that add stress. Holidays are an example of this. A new perspective allows less tension and helps you break hard habits. Don’t be afraid to set new traditions or be open to change.
The idea is to remove the focus on the habit and replace it with something positive that takes effort, an optimistic influence.
This will allow more satisfaction in the long run. Instead of feeling bad about eating when you are trying to stop snacking, you can feel healthier. In addition, you will have a great list of thoughts to return to whenever you need them.
It does take time to break habits, so a new challenge in their place should be considered as continuous, not short-lived. If you operate with perseverance, and determination, this new phase can take the place of your old habit.
Final Thoughts About Challenging Yourself
When considering challenging yourself, we looked at several steps for preparation, ideas during movement, and a few to maintain success long-term.
Challenging yourself brings greater results than simply making you stronger. It can create leadership, compassion, confidence, and generosity, just to highlight a few.
Beyond being spontaneous for fun, challenging yourself can create space for authentic personal growth and an optimistic perspective.
When approaching change correctly, you can experience more long-term success.