Day 66: Reaching the Finish Line
by Edward Smith
09 Sept 2020
Mission Complete!
In this article I wanted to finish what I started back on 06 July 2020. By this point it's been sixty six full days from when my challenge first began. You may be wondering, what is a sixty six day challenge, and does it even work?
A sixty six day challenge is a line you draw in the sand. It's you, declaring war on your stupid past self. It's you deciding to get mad at things. It's you deciding to figure things out.
In this article I'm going to tell you what my sixty six day challenge was, and what I learned. We all have a story to tell. This is mine.
Reflecting On the Last 66 Days
When I started this whole thing back in July, I had a number of concerns trapped in my head, but I was short on answers. Back in July I was worried about money, and I had just gotten done reading this awesome book called "Retired Inspired" by Chris Hogan.
In Chris Hogan's book, Hogan mentions that it takes about 66 days of scrutiny and intentional living to undo and change a bad habit. That's where I got the idea for this blog. I figured I'm going to have to face my next 66 days whether I want to do it responsibly or not. I might as well do it with intention and with a plan.
So on day one I sat down and decided to figure things out.
My Overspending Problem Defined
When I lived in California I had a nice paying full time job. The pay was nice, but I worried about getting laid off every single day. Being scared all of the time made me unhappy, so to make myself happy I began buying things. It didn't work, but that's what I did.
I began buying large quantities of dvd movies, video games and beer. I couldn't afford to do it, but I justified it and did it anyways. I enjoyed receiving the packages, and I enjoyed seeing my collection of stuff.
Those packages came with a steep price. I ended up hurting my wife. She didn't know what to do with me, and she had trouble trusting me after it happened. It wasn't fair, so I owed her.
Paying Her Back
I knew what I had done. It was time to rewrite history once and for all.
I love my wife and I'm man enough to know when I'm wrong and when I need to fix something.
I decided that during the next sixty six days I would really take a hard look at myself in the mirror and put new controls into place that would keep me from repeating old mistakes. So that's exactly what I did. Instead of talking about it, I did something about it.
For sixty six days I looked at the whole thing with a critical eye. I wrote about it, and I thought about it, which meant I often thought about it even when I wasn't trying to think about it. It sound silly, but the process really helped me to organize and figure things out.
It turned out, that for me, the money thing wasn't really that hard to fix, I just had to make some adjustments to my lifestyle and determine what mattered the most to me. I'd done it before on a larger scale with my family and our budget, but I needed to do it again on a smaller more personal scale. That's really all it took. The problem wasn't hard to solve, it just took a while for me to actually see it. Once I got it, it was pretty easy to fix.
Conclusion
If you ever find yourself struggling, it's okay. Instead of worrying, take a sixty six day challenge.
Identify your problem, and give it continuous love and attention. You may be surprised by what you learn.
When you address things for sixty six days straight, it puts pressure on your bad habits. Your habits are resistant, but they can't hide from you forever. Eventually you track them down. They get cornered and they attempt to fight you off, but they're not very good at fighting because they lack conviction.
Every day you bombard them, and as you do that, the habit begins to lose steam and begins to appear ridiculous. After enough days the habit surrenders. You win. Common sense prevails.
I encourage you to do a sixty six day challenge today. It works. You'll be thankful you did it.
Sixty Six Day Challenger Signing Off
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