When we hear the word “challenge”, we usually think of a physical challenge like running a marathon. Or maybe we think of an author or a teacher that challenges us. We think of homework as challenging…or of course, the “Dolly Parton Challenge” or “Ice Bucket Challenge” on social media.
But how often do you think about challenging yourself? Not just academically or professionally, but in life?
Probably not too often because by nature, people don’t like it when they’re challenged. They might associate challenges with a fear of failing or the threat of pain. That threat may cause a person to avoid any situations that are challenging. Instead, they seek out what’s familiar, what’s comfortable.
If challenges are always associated with failure, it’s no wonder many people have lost sight of their full potential.
Challenges Don’t Have to Be “Win or Lose”
According to some therapists, the American lifestyle is imbalanced and over-focused on treating happiness as a commodity – as something you buy. The illusion that we must overcome challenges and then become hugely successful, or fail, only brings about more negative associations.
That’s the problem. The idea of challenging yourself should feel like a positive experience, something that can guide you to success, to self-improvement, and even yes, to more lasting comfort.
If we could relearn the idea that challenges are good for us and not about winning or losing, that would help people at every stage of their lives find greater happiness.
What Are the Benefits to Challenging Yourself?
Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania, teaches “positive psychology”, which he calls the scientific study of what creates “flourishing.” The goal of positive psychology is not merely life satisfaction, but “well-being and flourishing” as an individual.
Another definition of “flourishing” is “vigorous and healthy growth.” Therefore, seeing challenges as opportunities for growth, rather than win or lose scenarios, puts the fun factor back into the equation.
Seligman even believes that by 2051, if teachers follow a more positive direction, young people may benefit tremendously. He cited 21 replication studies and observations of middle-school students, claiming by flourishing theory, they were able to “lower depression, anxiety, and bad conduct…and also demonstrated improved social skills.”
Challenging yourself is a matter of giving yourself room and opportunity to grow.
The Gift of Change
Predictability may feel like a more comfortable choice. But with a lack of challenge comes negative traits and thinking patterns.
Like complacency. Procrastination. Perhaps even boredom or increased bouts of depression and anxiety.
The benefits of challenging yourself lie in the gift of change. What doesn’t challenge you cannot assist in your growth or self-improvement. When habits rule your life, you stay the same. You don’t improve but slowly decline by default.
On the other hand, the benefits of rising to a challenge are positive and permanent:
- You figure out what’s important to you
- You determine what your goals are and how to achieve them
- You reprioritize what matters in your life
- You learn new things
- You are more motivated to act
- You increase your skills when you adapt to challenges
- You lose the fear of new challenges because you view them as opportunities, not a threat
- You get more connections, the more risks you take
- You gain self-confidence and happiness by doing what you love
Challenges give you the chance to become something more, a better version of yourself. Maybe you even get a chance to accomplish long-term goals or create new goals entirely because of the doors you’ve opened.
The benefits of thinking bigger and taking more chances are easy to see: Better health, better knowledge, and success.
Rising to the Challenge
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it an easy process. Change is hard. Getting out of your comfort zone is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. Understandably so, because with risk comes a fear of failing.
In fact, research by Linkagoal and YouGov shows that one in three Americans are most afraid of failure, even surpassing other well-known fears like being alone, fear of witnessing something supernatural, and of course, icky spiders.
The fear of losing prevents a person from taking a risk and going too far outside their comfort zone. Ironically, in the same survey, 49 percent of respondents said they knew that fear of failure was their most significant obstacle to achieving their goals.
Millennials in high school and college also reported a much higher fear of failure, at 40 percent, much higher when compared to Generation X, at 31 percent, and Baby Boomers at 23 percent.
If you’re still in school, then no doubt you face heavy pressure right now, to graduate, pay off your debt, and find a rewarding career. Sure, there’s a lot to lose. Challenging yourself and leaving that comfort zone does require courage.
But reckless courage isn’t enough. Success requires following a series of milestones, mental and physical, that break the goal into manageable steps.
If you want to challenge yourself and grow, make sure you’re doing so in the proper order:
- By transforming your thoughts
- Taking decisive action
- Researching the best way to succeed
Let’s first consider how change starts in your mind.
Challenge Your Ordinary Thoughts
If you’ve ever had an uncomfortable moment of self-awareness where you seem to “wake up” from a daydream, then what you are actually doing is breaking away from your established routine.
That’s a start.
Our entire daily routine consists of several habits. These habits are automatic behaviors that we’ve learned over a period of time. We do our predictable routine so often we stop consciously thinking about it.
With little or no self-awareness, we then repeat these actions because it becomes comfortable and requires little to no thought. These patterns get etched into neural pathways, and the more we do carry them out, the less conscious we are when doing so.
Charles Duhigg, an award-winning journalist writes in The Power of Habit that habits form after a three-part process:
- The Trigger, which tells the brain to automate the action
- The Routine, which is the behavior and the series of events before and after
- The Reward, which is a positive association that helps to strengthen and create the “habit loop”
From that process, we create habits without even thinking about them. Once you start a habit and stop consciously thinking about it, the part of your brain that makes conscious decisions checks out. You use less brain power because by now, you have automated the process.
Duhigg also states that the same process that creates bad habits can also be used to reverse those habits and create productive behaviors instead. Knowing the formula on how to use the unconscious part of your brain can be an advantage in this case.
No wonder then that doing something out of the ordinary, like taking a vacation or even snapping out of a daydream, is very helpful. It breaks you out of those automated processes and gives you back the decision-making ability you have stopped using.
Analyze your daily routine and identify these habits. For example, do you get notifications on your phone?
If so, then that chime or pop up window be the trigger. Loading your social media app would become the “routine”, one that you barely even think about doing, as it’s automatic.
Finally, the reward is the rush of excitement you get when a friend comments or sends you a direct message.
Now that you know how habits form, it’s time to reprogram your brain to get rid of old habits to make way for new challenges.
Reprogram a Better Habit
Create a new “trigger” or ritual that will remind you to carry out a different routine. Maybe try an alarm, a computer notification, or some other sort of reminder that breaks your concentration and wakes you to a conscious decision.
Then, perform the habit daily, slowly reprogramming your mind to use less and less thinking power. Reward yourself after accomplishing the task.
As suggested in a study by Doctors Jane Wardle and Phillippa Lally of University College London, routines become ingrained after repetition. On average, it took 66 days for most respondents to acquire a new habit. Some individuals required more time.
However, the key was daily repetition. Rather than just giving up a bad habit, consciously try to dissect that habit. Figure out the ritual, routine, and reward. Then, think about a better habit you want to replace it with, making sure to find:
- A new trigger that snaps you back to reality
- A new routine that gives you comfort and is easy to automate
- A reward that makes the habit worthwhile.
As long as you keep the practice up for approximately two months daily, it will become a habit. Now you see the beginning of a simple but significant life change.
You’ve challenged yourself in mind, and now you know how to change your thoughts and actions. It’s time to go further now, as we consider how to take more decisive action in your education, career, and life.
How to Challenge Yourself with a New Purpose
Now that you’ve learned how to rewire your brain for better habits, it’s time to focus on the challenge itself – finding a worthwhile purpose.
Leaving your comfort zone will be beneficial for you and inspiring to others. However, until you consider personal self-improvement, it will not feel like an authentic life change. A real challenge is not merely a life uprooting. The same problems, the same anxieties, and bad habits can quickly come back.
Real challenges give you the opportunity for individual growth. Defining what self-improvement means to you is as personal an experience as defining happiness.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., says, in basic psychology, self-improvement refers to your two selves – “ego wounded self and core self.”
The core self is your “true or natural self,” the one that has passion, talent, and love. The part of yourself you are born with and learn in childhood is the essence of you.
But when parental love is lacking, we create the ego-wounded self, a persona that searches for comfort, for control, and for love. This false self or wounded self needs healing. But it also holds many false beliefs and bad habits that limit your full potential.
Therefore, getting in touch with your “true self” means moving beyond the wounds of childhood and old romances and learning who you are in your natural state, your core self.
This true self is a part of you that you must relearn or perhaps discover for the first time. Rediscover your passions, strengths, ambitions, and favorite pastimes. Finding out what you truly want out of life is how you challenge yourself, with a mind to finding a new purpose.
You Can’t Study Yourself Forever
Getting in touch with forgotten memories and coming to terms with your regrets can only take you so far. While beneficial for a while, continually living in the past only keeps you in the same place. But this is still a way of loitering inside that old comfort zone.
Challenging yourself means reinventing yourself. Nor does it mean reshaping your values or personality to be someone else. Instead, you enhance the you that already exists. You can do this by expanding your horizons and seeking out new positive experiences that you’ve never before tried.
For example:
- Read more books
- Meet new people
- Try new hobbies
- Learn a new language
- Learn a new skill
- Take a class in something that interests you
- Improve your creativity
- Improve logical thinking and problem-solving abilities
- Improve your mechanical skills
- Find new muses and personal sources of inspiration
- Get in shape and eat a healthier diet for better mental clarity
- Travel somewhere you’ve never been
In other words, the goal is to keep learning and stop being satisfied with what you already know.
Ravenna Helson, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, says that most people “modify their identities as they go through life.”
Helson directed the Mills Study, which surveyed 120 women over 50 years, examining their personal development. She states that many of the respondents passed the age of 60 explored self-improvement and made great strides in becoming their “true self” later in life.
Challenging your mind and body to do more and learn more is the next step. Best of all, there is no age limit. There is no reason not to reach your full potential at any time, except by deliberate choice.
How to Find Your Greatest Challenge
Ambition is highly personal and exclusive to each person. We live in an age where many people want to tell you what you should be doing, yet few people give serious thought about what they want to be.
By now, you have thought about hobbies that interest you. But now it’s time to prioritize all of your ambitions and focus on the greatest challenge.
You can do this by:
- Meditating, a mindfulness process that sometimes gives you great ideas
- Volunteering for a cause that tugs at your heartstrings
- Imagining yourself far in the future, as is, (the way you are now), and ask the question, “What will I have the most regret not trying or accomplishing?”
- Remembering what you always wanted to do when you were younger and full of dreams
Learning your biggest challenge and ultimate goal in life is all about rediscovering your dreams.
There is one final component to challenging yourself and who you want to be. You must chart your future by making more specific goals.
Challenge Yourself with Specific Goals
If you manage to change your thoughts and take action, and yet never actually chart a course to your ultimate future, you may find yourself frustrated at your lack of progress. You may even feel spiritually unfulfilled.
Why? Because while accomplishing little things helps tremendously, in terms of relaxing you and boosting your well-being, it’s not enough. A life of feeling good most of the time feels a bit shallow after a while. Eventually, you desire something more.
You want to excel at something. You want to feel valued and successful. Achieving something takes ambition for sure, and most people have that.
What most people do not have, however, is a willingness to plan your future using a set of achievable goals. They might have dreams, but they have no idea how to accomplish them, or no real desire to chart a course to that dream. You do and you can.
Science shows that there is a direct correlation to achieving goals and extensively planning goals.
Psychology Professor Dr. Gail Matthews showed that writing down goals and committing to a series of actionable steps led to 76 percent of participants achieving said goals. Those who didn’t write down their goals in detail only had a 43 percent success rate.
We thrive and flourish when we are consistently achieving goals. Naturally, we cannot always achieve monumental goals and no one wants to live up to that high standard. Most of your goals will be small and achievable within a short amount of time.
You could make daily goals, weekly goals, or a monthly goal. Achieving small goals on a regular basis gives you confidence and keeps you focused on the challenge at hand.
This commitment to achieving something will keep you motivated. It’s the opposite of complacency. It’s the lifestyle change you need to make your ambition happen.
Start with a Huge Challenge and Break It Down to Steps
Your small goals should come from your daunting and seemingly impossible dream. You start with a huge challenge. But from that difficult task comes a number of smaller and short-term goals that take you up that ladder of achievement, rung by rung.
Little goals should be both professional and personal. If you’re going for daily or weekly goals, then you’re going to need a lot of them! These individual journeys guide you to success but they are achievements all their own.
Goals should meet all of the criteria to keep them achievable:
- Highly specific, not too general (Think ridiculously detailed!)
- Find the reasons why you need to accomplish this goal, why it’s so important to you
- Make sure each “milestone” has a purpose and is related to the ultimate goal
- Research the goal in great detail
- Take note of how other people achieved their objectives and plan accordingly
Small goals push you forward, moving you ever closer to the big goal.
When creating new goals for the first time, you might find it useful to take a professional approach – using what career professionals call S.M.A.R.T. goals. This objective-focused approach to planning ensures that your goals are not too high or impossible to succeed, but that they are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-based
Goals that are performance-based and not strictly about winning or losing (or doing or not doing) are much easier to achieve. Easier is good. Easier works!
You can read more about S.M.A.R.T. goals and management strategy at TechRepublic.
Make Your Challenges Fun, Not Overwhelming
Have you ever heard the expression “Enjoy the journey, not just the destination?”
It’s true because you can make your individual goals fun – make them an uplifting part of your day. Focus on the positive and on making each goal personally meaningful.
Regardless of whether you achieve the final dream in the end, the journey itself would have been worth it – because these were all experiences you wanted to have!
They were exciting and worthwhile in their own right. This way, you truly have no regrets since you are enjoying your daily life, challenging yourself, and following your dreams.
Some people say that writing about your new objectives, such as starting a “gratitude journal” helps tremendously. This way, you can focus on areas of improvement, feel good about achieving your aims, and continuously measure your results.
Vision boards are also another lifestyle change that brings you positive emotions and boosts the momentum of daily achievement. Creating the “vision” of what you want in life is an important part of the visualization process.
It also lets you confront your big and little challenges every day. You always remind yourself what you must do and what action must follow. The vision will soon become part of your life, part of your habits, and daily routine. Soon, this life, this challenge, will become your life’s focus – your entire life’s ambition!
And you will be happier. Guess what? Your big goal will also become more attainable as the years pass.
Your Challenge Must Involve Other People
Over time, even if you achieve wonderful things, you will never be at peace with yourself unless you find a way to share the happiness you’ve found.
Deep down, we all want to give back something back to the community. We want success, we want personal and professional challenges, but we also want more interaction with people, we want to share the good feelings.
A UCL study determined that 30 percent of respondents, approximately 65 years of age, lived longer when they had “well-being”, or a sense of meaning and purpose.
It’s no coincidence that people who feel “lost” in life also feel isolated. Studies confirm that surviving alone and without purpose will diminish the quality of life. It’s not enough, then, to stay busy, but to find one’s higher purpose. Without it, not only did their quality of life decrease but the very perception of life having meaning also decreased.
Meaningfulness and purpose suggest not monumental success or over-achievement, but rather a strong connection to other people.
Challenging yourself must involve bringing other people into your life. It’s not just about increasing your social network but also opening your mind to new lessons, treating every conversation as an opportunity to learn.
Some of the best ways to reach out to people, beyond just work, include:
- Making small talk with strangers
- Looking for new friends
- Going to meetups or local events
- Improving communication with family and friends
- Listening more, talking less
- Befriending people who are “opposite” of us
- Traveling and meeting new people along the way
- Reaching out to mentors, people you look up to for advice
- Asking for help in a new subject you want to learn
- Smiling at more people in general and developing a more approachable personality and positive energy
- Complimenting other people
- When you’re not listening, ask people more questions!
- Read about social issues that you don’t understand very well – challenge yourself to learn more!
- Do kind things for strangers
- Ask people about their lives, their stories, their memories
- Meet your neighbors
In other words, make time for people – not for things, not for success or wealth. That will come in due time. Learn to embrace people. That is the final challenge because we find strength in each other. We make connections by knowing more people and reaching out in new ways.
Why Challenges Matter
In closing, remember that your life goals and personal challenges should precede your career field. Your career should take you closer to building that ideal life you envision for yourself, rather than distracting you from it. It’s never too late to start over and reimagine your life the way you want it.
As we’ve learned:
- Challenges don’t have to be winning or losing
- Taking on new challenges means the chance to grow and find new opportunities
- Challenging your ordinary thoughts to something bigger and better begins the process
- You can change habits by becoming more mindful and self-aware – giving thought to what you’re doing
- Changing your lifestyle first requires learning yourself and what you want
- After learning yourself, you must go beyond the hurt and desire for comfort – reach out and discover your greatest ambition
- Break down your biggest challenge to smaller and more specific goals
- Make the daily/weekly process enjoyable – embrace the journey, not the destination
- Involve other people always – human connection is the challenge and it’s a need we cannot ignore
Consider that a recent survey suggested that only 23 percent of Americans believe they can make a difference, which is a surprisingly low number. The majority lacks confidence and initiative. Don’t let discouragement get to you.
By learning to embrace challenges, you train yourself for success and for the chance to make a difference in your own life and the lives of others. Change your world by having the courage to try. Welcome your next challenge because the idea of personal growth strengthens and inspires you!