Transform your Life, 30 Days at a Time

...where I share life transformation plans broken down into 30 day challenges made easier by step by step, day by day guides. I try to cover all aspects, starting with the big ones: career, finance, health, fitness, relationships, parenthood but there will be more to follow as we grow. This IS, afterall, about life transformation, not just one area so the scope is vast and the journey is long.

I find it easier when you have someone telling you exactly what to do and a checklist is on hand to tell you what to do each day alongside the opportunity to tick that task of each day with a sense of achievement. 

Hope you find the material and resources shared here useful, for any comments or suggestions, please reach out to hello@milda.co.uk 

How this started ?

In general, I find it interesting how nobody can agree as to how long a habit formation works. Some people say it can take just 9 days, some claim minimum of 12 weeks. For example, Phillippa Lally, a researcher in health psychology at University College London, conducted a study featured in the European Journal of Social Psychology to investigate the timeframe required to establish a habit. The research involved 96 participants observed over a 12-week period. Each individual selected a new habit to adopt during this time and regularly reported their adherence to the behavior and the degree of automaticity they perceived.

The chosen habits ranged from simple tasks like "drinking a bottle of water with lunch" to more challenging activities such as "running for 15 minutes before dinner." After the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to ascertain the duration it took for each person to transition from initiating a new behavior to performing it automatically.

The findings revealed that, on average, it takes over two months for a new behavior to become automatic—specifically, 66 days. 

That’s 9 weeks of hard work (wouldn’t be a challenge if it wasn’t hard!) with so many opportunities to fail and find excuses to not stick to it.

My biggest fear when it comes to self development has always been to waste my time on forcing on the wrong thing, "climbing the wrong mountain" so to speak. Not giving up is great but at some point, it might be the wisest thing. That’s why I think 30 days is the optimum amount of time. You can really push yourself, feel that sense of achievement and already start seeing the results. But most importantly, at the end of it, decide if that is truly a habit you want to take on.

You have 3 options at the end of 30 days.

• CONTINUE transforming the desired behaviour into a life long habit (if it's the right thing for you, it will no longer be challenging and you will want to do it everyday or at frequency of your choice)
• Extend the TRIAL period: Add additional 30 days to the challenge if you are uncertain this is for you and then re-evaluate again at the end. 
• PASS: Thank yourself for taking the challenge on and sticking to it but drop it if it brings no true benefit to your life.

speaking from experience 

A lot of information here is not my own and pulled from others, more qualified in their fields. My aim is to research, summarise and build out the plans based on professional recommendations. However, I do try the challenges myself to provide feedback, comments and suggestions.

Examples of Continue-Trial-Pass from my life (as I DO, do these challenges myself... that makes me somewhat qualified to give advice, right?)

Habit that STUCK: Back in 2013 I decided to go vegan for 1 month. Not that many people knew how vegan differed from vegetarian and I wasn’t even a vegetarian. My last meal was a medium rare steak from Harvester, my aim was to go vegan to lose weight and if it helps with weight loss, maybe continue it a few days a week (people who know Harvester might suggest that the steak is the reason I ended up giving up meat). I enjoyed it so much and I related to vegan values so passionately that 10 years on I am still vegan without fail.

Habit that I decided to PASS on: 30 days without UPF (Ultra Processed Foods). It was by far the most difficult challenge I took on as so much of what I ate was UPF (bread, tinned beans/lentils/chickpeas that have firming agents, olives (!!!) gherkins, etc.). First couple of days were exciting but the rest were hell. After 30 days I decided this is NOT for me. Too difficult, too expensive and overall not worth the hassle as while I felt good about being 'clean', physical benefit wasn't good enough for me to continue. 

Habit that I decided to keep on TRIAL basis: Running. Sitting down and setting up some fitness goals led me to signing up to a 10k race. Every time I thought I need to work out a bit more, running was my go to exercise as it was easy, free and produced quick results. I never ran more than 3 miles in my life. Decided to take on a challenge and train (30 day challenge did include rest days). I now do 10k a week but decided it's a bit too boring. Every time I run, I listen to audio books, music or podcasts but I still find it all pretty dull and monotonous. It's been 2 months and I am still in my 'unsure' phase. I know I can train to be quicker, I can train for longer distances but it's just not something that I really want to push myself for. I will keep running until that decision comes to me. 

final words

Start a challenge, any challenge, TODAY. 30 days will fly by.  You’ve got nothing to lose but so much to gain.  

This blog started more of a diary that would help keep me motivated to stay on track but has quickly evolved into a small but very important readership. Thank you all for being here 😊