Calm’s 21 Day Habit Challenge

Explore making and breaking habits mindfully

July 17th - August 6th, 2017

#calmchallenge

Cultivate a new habit or let go of one that no longer serves you in order to invite increased meaning, health and wellbeing into your life.

What have you been meaning to stop or start doing, but keep putting off until tomorrow? Perhaps a daily meditation practice, eating more greens, limiting screen time, developing a new skill, kicking sugar to the curb, creating art, exercising regularly, cutting out complaining, practicing gratitude, or performing random acts of kindness?

Maybe you’ve already tried with enthusiasm and good intention, but your efforts fizzled out? There’s always a good reason to put off shifting your habits including holidays, birthdays, weekends, hard days and a general lack of time. We get it. The thing is, there will always be a handful of reasons not to try, but we’re more excited about the benefits on the other side of committing to yourself. That’s where new possibilities live.

Breaking or making a habit is not easy (that’s why this is called a challenge), but it’s possible with three essential ingredients: commitment, mindfulness, and community.

Mindfulness is a powerful tool. The awareness that gained from paying attention offers unique and critical information needed to empower change. You’ll also notice the qualities you build through your practice like compassion, non-judgement, acceptance, awareness, and curiosity are invaluable supports in the process of creating sustainable shifts and dealing with everyday challenges.

What can you learn from intentionally changing your behavior, and exploring the cravings and compulsion behind what you do?

Community is a reminder that you are not in this alone and provides support to help you keep your commitment.

Let’s try this together. Let’s share our stories, offer solidarity, cheer each other on, and tap into the strength of collectively working towards positive change in our lives.

Dream up some intentions and take action to cultivate a new way of being. It’s about getting to know yourself better and exploring your potential.

Step One:

Download and print the Challenge Guide to start the process.

Step Two:

Contemplate what you want to shift. You can do this while meditating, journaling, sipping tea, or walking — basically whatever supports you to connect to your own needs and imagination.

Step Three:

Reflect on any challenges that might come up for you and create some strategies to help support your challenge.

Step Four:

Prepare and print your Challenge Calendar to track your progress and learnings.

Step Five:

Join the Daily Calm Community and introduce yourself. In your post, tell us about your habit challenge and any hopes or fears that you might have. Include the hashtag #calmchallenge so that your post is easy to find and we can cheer for you! *Please note that the group is closed so only members of the community will be able to see when you post in the Daily Calm Community. That said if you want to let your friends and family know what you're doing feel free to use the #calmchallenge hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

Step Six:

Start your challenge and reflect on what comes up for you. Check in regularly with the Daily Calm Community. This is where you can connect with other challengers, share your reflections, ask questions, and find daily tips, articles, and inspiration.

Heads up!

It’s important not to tackle your deepest, darkest habit unless you have the support of a therapist or health practitioner. When you begin to look deeper into why you do the things you do, it’s not uncommon to find a complex and tangled root system beneath seeming simple habits. It’s for this very reason that compassion and gentleness are required and that you choose a challenge that takes you to an edge, but that feels manageable at this time. Also, it can be easy to want to break five habits and make five new ones, but that is an easy recipe for overwhelm. Start simple and remember that there are seventeen, 21-day periods in the year, so you don’t have to shift everything today.