Hey, Rams! Happy Finals Week! Hopefully you’re not too terribly stressed out at this point – or maybe you’re even lucky like me and you’re already DONE, which comes with its own highs and lows.

High: You’re done with classes. No more long papers with thousands of citations and quizzes.

Low: My classes were keeping me grounded in what day of the week it is. Also, aside from work, I don’t really have a lot else to do this summer. Boo.

On the good side of that, while I don’t have a lot I have to do, I do have a lot I want to do. I want to paint some rooms in my house. I want to read a book or seventeen. I want to go swimming and learn Spanish and learn on SkillShare and…well, a lot of things.

Today, we are talking about this summer, what we can accomplish with it, and what that this summer means for the 2020-2021 school year.

Between the last day of classes for Spring 2020, May 12, and the first day of classes for Fall 2020, August 17, there are 97 days. (Sorry, Phineas and Ferb, but 104 isn’t accurate unless we get an extra week.) That means you have time for three thirty-day challenges and still have an extra week in there for a vacation or something.

What is a thirty-day challenge?

Just like it sounds; you do something for thirty days, typically with the difficulty increasing each day. This is especially true in fitness challenges, but it can be a few other things as well. Here are some ideas for things you can do and improve upon over thirty days.

Planking

Start with however long you can currently plank, minus ten seconds. Tomorrow, add in five seconds. The next day, you can add in five more. Keep increasing in small increments for thirty days. There are a lot of apps out there that are thirty day planking apps. Leap Fitness Group has a good one that has you doing a variety of different types of planks to work all your ab muscles.

Reading

Want to read more? Consider a thirty-day reading challenge! If you don’t read much, start with one or two chapters, or ten pages. Over time, work up to a goal like 100 pages per day. You can read a lot of books pretty quickly at that rate!

Cleaning

If you’re like me, you have a lot to clean and no desire to do chores at the end of a long day. Make a thirty-day challenge out of it! Clean for five minutes, or even 20 items, on day one, and expand that time or item count every day.

Other challenge ideas

• Practicing a language each day for an increasing amount of time or increasing in difficulty
• Drinking water every day – start with one glass of plain ol’ water per day and increase up to eight glasses by the end
• Journal every day – Start with just a sentence or so.  Increase each day.  Or even look up a challenge with a different prompt to try each day
• Draw every day – Once again, try a new prompt or something outside of your comfort zone each day for thirty days
• Practice an instrument every day – increase in time or increase in difficulty of the piece.  Don’t stay with the same four chords you know!
• Walking each day – 5,000 steps per day, working up to 15,000 per day.
• Insert whatever you like doing but don’t typically take the time to do here!

Thirty-day challenges are awesome because they give you a defined amount of time to keep up a difficult task. We might not want whatever we do to become a regular activity for us. Planking every day for 5-10 minutes is tough (though it would be awesome if you could achieve that!) Practicing an instrument or language for an hour or more each day might not work once school starts back up. But, if you can keep it up for thirty days during the summer, then it can potentially provide great benefits for you!

Have you ever done a thirty-day challenge? What did you do and why did you like it? Let us know in the comments below!