It’s soon to be 2023! Hurrah for new beginnings and second chances and New Year Resolutions! Do you make them? How do you do? If you’ve not been too successful, try kickstarting your resolutions this year with a 30-day challenge.
What is a 30-day challenge? It’s adopting a particular action that would have a positive influence on your life if you could just consistently do it. You promise yourself “This time, for sure!” You think you’ve read the science that says this will work. It seems kind of simple. However… our human brains are very resistant to change and seem to be threatened or afraid of change. What to do? Promise your brain that it only has to work with you on some easy first steps for a quick 30 days. Maybe easy-peasy?
The original 30-Day Challenge was posted on Tumblr in 2010 and was wildly successful. While this first one was a “getting to know you” challenge, the concept has been used to inspire people to try and succeed at all sorts of things. 
Here are two recent challenges that now have international communities: Inktober is a month-long drawing challenge in October; and NaNoWriMo challenges people to write a novel in November, doing some of the writing each day. Read more about the latter in 100 Ways to Win NaNoWriMo by Gail Hulnick, who has published two of the books she started during this November challenge. One of those books is now a finalist for a Royal Palm Literary Award. I’ve not done either of these challenges, although I follow people on social media who participate.
I am here to admit that two of my bad habits are too much social media and not spending good quality time with my needles and threads. I’m not ready to tackle my Facebook addiction… so I looked around for a good challenge for my fiber-loving self.
Creativebug has over 60 Daily Practices to choose from including painting, quilting, decorating and much more. I selected Daily Embroidery Challenge: Stitch a Day Sampler by Rebecca Ringquist. It’s the first of four you can work through in Creativebug. Each class is made up of a number of videos, a materials list, a gallery of images, and a place to put notes. In this class, the materials list includes the opportunity to purchase a printed “Drawing Stitches” sampler from Ringquist’s company, but I am going to use fabric I already have. Would you like to consider this challenge? Use this link to reach this Daily Practice. Be sure to log in right away with your library card and password so that Creativebug will remember which classes you’ve looked at or started. Next month, I’ll continue this theme with a report on how it went for me. “Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops” is available if you want to have another look into Ringquist’s techniques and teaching.
Of course, 30-day challenges can be for just about anything. There are walking goals, reading goals, creative goals and eating healthy goals. It can be 30 days of enjoying the same activity over and over such as a yoga practice or drinking water. Sometimes we enjoy challenges with other people via an online community and sometimes it can be a personal commitment you make to yourself.
On our shelves, you will find many books on how to select and implement a new good habit to improve your life or correct bad habits. But since this is my article, I want to share a quote from my favorite success coach, Jenn Sincero, who writes “When you repeat something enough times, you establish new neural pathways in the brain that your habit flows through effortlessly and automatically, allowing you to literally fuggetaboutit.” Her book “Badass Habits” is like having a friend within arm’s reach at all times who encourages and challenges me.
I also like the suggestions that James Clear presents in his book Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. Clear encourages us to make small changes and demonstrates how just 1% improvements can lead to measurable results. He discusses plateaus and how repetition overcomes those plateaus, and how making small changes day after day can lead to great personal growth. Following these principles, your small, simple daily actions can result in a life-changing outcome or habit.
Do you think that taking on a 30-day challenge might help you achieve your New Year’s Resolutions this year? A successful challenge will take you to January 30, at least! I am doing this with the hope it will remind me that I love the work of pulling thread through fabric to create something new, and I deserve to find the time to feed my soul with happy things.
