My 30 Day Challenge

After watching Matt Cutts' TED presentation, we all decided on undertaking challenges of our own. Matt Cutts suggested that we choose challenges that make the days memorable, increase self-confidence, and are sustainable. Challenges can be habits that we either add to our lives or subtract from our lives.

Here's the video, in case you want to watch it (again):


For the mine own challenges, I've decided to add stair climbing and subtract saying, "Don't," to my children at home.

During the year, I occasionally walk up the stairs to the cafeteria (12 floors up), but during this camp, I will be doing this every day. So far, so good. As a way of motivating myself to sustain this habit, I've told all my students and co-workers that I'm going to do this. I've also given permission to the students to shame me if they see me taking the elevator instead of the stairs.

As for the second challenge, this is proving a much more difficult habit to change. My two boys are still quite young (still in kindergarten), so they often do things they shouldn't be doing. I'm trying to alter my speech to make them think about their actions. I want to say, "Should you be doing that?" or "Is that the right thing to do?" Saying, "Don't!" is much quicker and easier to utter. This challenge will require more work from me.

I will update my progress on the 30 day challenge next week.