30-Day Challenge: Digital Detox January

Happy New Year, 2015 style! We’re now closer to 2030 than we are to 2000. Can you believe it?

I don’t know if the day after getting drunk and partying to the wee hours of the morning is the best time to start a new habit, but New Year’s Day is, by far, the most popular one of the year to try.

And research has actually shown the habit changes you start on a significant day in your life: New Years, your birthday, an anniversary, etc. tend to stick better than ones that don’t.

Here at Riskology, we’re less concerned with making giant, sweeping changes on an arbitrary day (we know they’re the least likely to last) and more interested in making small tweaks to how we live that slowly build up to huge successes.

That’s how you make changes that last. And it’s why I want to invite you to join us in The Riskology Lab for this month’s 30-Day challenge: Digital Detox January.

If you’ve ever felt like you spend just a little too much time staring at screens in your life—and not enough doing other meaningful things—this simple challenge is what you need to start a new, healthy habit.

30-Day Challenge: Digital Detox January

I gave up TV years ago, and I haven’t had cable in nearly a decade. What spurred the change? I was out for a walk around my neighborhood one night and, as I looked in the windows of the houses I passed, I saw person after person slouched on a chair or couch staring at a glowing box.

“Is this really what life is supposed to be like?” I asked myself. When you’re outside, the world is big and you see just how much of it you have left to explore. Being in that moment and simultaneously looking in at the scene of people huddled around a TV in their little room, it made me realize how important it was to me to not make that my life.

So, I unplugged my TV and started making rules about what I would do instead when I felt tempted to plug it back in. Slowly making that life change was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

When one of our community members, Naomi, approached me about doing a 30-day challenge to be more mindful about the time we spend messing around online or watching TV, I said, “Bring it on!”

The idea is simple: Choose an amount of time each day you’ll turn off the screens in your life and do something else important or fulfilling. Then, report your success, struggles and occasional failures in The Lab. There are no hard and fast rules; you can modify the challenge to suit yourself and make it your own.

Naomi will be leading us, and I’ll be participating along with all of you. Come join us. You can test out a new, small change in your life and get the full support of our community to make that change a successful habit.

Join us for Digital Detox January.

And if this month’s challenge isn’t for you, start your own and invite others to join you.

Last Month’s Gratitude Challenge: Epic Success

Last month, I invited you to join us in 30 days of gratitude, and you turned out in force! More than 40 people joined in to share something they were grateful for each day. It was really fun and inspiring. If you need a dose of feel-good, browse through the 18 pages of gratitude you all created last month.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying the first day of the new year, and I hope it’s inspiring you to think big about the direction you want your life to go. If you want some accountability on that path, we’ll see you in The Lab.