BYOB: The Life-Changing Magic of a Good Challenge
Set a time-bound goal for yourself this month and see what happens.
By: Shaunta Grimes
I sat down this morning to think about why challenges, or experiments, appeal to me so much. Because, honestly, almost nothing else excites me so much in my work.
I came up with a couple of ideas.
First, though. When I talk about a challenge, I mean challenging myself to do something big in or for a short period of time. Or challenging myself to an experiment, again, over a short period of time, so I can see what happens.
I love a challenge because it’s time bound. I can’t stand to think about doing almost anything forever. Example: I don’t own a home, even though I want to, because I want to be able to move easily even more. When I get to the point of buying a house, I balk. Every. Single. Time.
There are only two things that don’t trigger my panic response (for me, that’s always flight) when I think about doing them forever. One is being part of my family (which for me expands to my close friendships)— mom, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend. The other is being a writer.
As long as I’m doing the kind of writing I want to do.
I love a challenge because it stretches me. A time-bound challenge gives me the chance to see what’s possible. It’s exciting. If I set myself out to do something big for a small amount of time, I’m always impressed with the results.
I might not be able to think about doing something really big forever — but I can do almost anything for a short period of time. A challenge helps me to bypass my natural, human tendency to shy away from things that seem too hard or impossible.
I love a challenge because they never fail to show me what’s possible.I’ve written a novel in 30 days, and started a writing career. I’ve written a blog post every day for 90 days, and seen my readership increase by 100 time. I’ve exercised for 10 minutes a day for 100 days, and saved my mobility.
A challenge focuses my attention for a while, so that I can make decisions based on what exactly I’m working on in the moment.
The Blog-Your-Own-Book Challenge is exactly the kind of challenge I love.
BYOB is time bound, of course. There are four month-long challenges imbedded in it.
In July, we’ll plan our books.
In August, we’ll write every day for 31 days and publish that writing in our blogs.
In September, we’ll edit those posts into books.
And in October, we’ll prepare those books for self-publishing or to use as marketing tools.
Do all of those things this year and those four months will prove to you that you can write a book. That you can create a plan and stick to it. That you can create something that other people want to read.
BYOB is also big enough to be a stretch. Writing a blog post every day for 31 days is real work. If you’re not used to that pace, it’s going to be something you have to sacrifice for.
And if you do it? You’ll know for certain that it’s possible. You’ll be able to do it again and again and again. And that, my friend, is how you build a writing career.
July’s Challenge
So, if we’re going to take this BYOB Challenge, there are some things we need to challenge ourselves to do in July.
Choose a topic.
Pick the 31 blog posts that we’ll write.
Plan each blog post, to give us the best chance of actually being successful in August when we write them.
Ramp up our writing by setting a smaller challenge for writing in July.
I wrote about choosing your topic here.
Let’s talk about that last challenge for a minute. One point of the BYOB challenge is to develop a daily writing habit. Fact: going from not writing every day to writing every day can be jarring.
Every year, during NaNoWriMo, fiction writers everywhere knock themselves out trying to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. And every year, many of them are so knocked out that they don’t think about writing again until the next November.
The BYOB Challenge shouldn’t be like that. I don’t want you to jump in with both feet in August, write 31 blog posts, and then abandon writing all together until next August.
So here’s a little side challenge for July. Think about whatever your blogging pace is now — and, unless that number is ‘daily’, double it up to daily writing.
If you write one blog post a month usually, write two in July. If you write one a week, write two a week in July. If you write five times a week, in July up that to seven.
If you’re already writing daily, then you don’t need this mini challenge. Unless, of course, you do. I’m going to have to write my BYOB book in addition to the blogging I already do, because I blog specifically as a way of speaking to my audience of Ninja Writers.
I’ll still need to do my regular blogging. So, while I generally blog close to every day, I’ve challenged myself in July to keep up my normal blogging schedule and add in posts about the BYOB Challenge.
Spend this weekend solidifying your BYOB Challenge.
Choose your topic. Think about what you’ll need to do in July to make August happen. Set a July writing challenge for yourself.
Name those challenges and own them. Here’s mine.
In July, I’m going to plan 31 blog posts about creating a writing habit to write in August — and write at least fifty total blog posts.
Your turn! What’s your July BYOB Challenge?
Have questions about the Blog Your Own Book Challenge? Check out the FAQ page!
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I want to thank you for your writing, and I am super excited about BYOB! I'm a procrastinator and love your style of breaking goals down. I did your ten minutes a day challenge and wrote 10,000 words in 30 days. Which is a lot for me-haha Thanks a million-looking forward to this very much!!!!
This is my first writing challenge and I am really looking forward to it. My topic is 31 ways to deepen and growth your spirituality in everyday life. In other words, may the extraordinary come alive in the ordinary. Thanks