Challenges that will change your life in 30 days

Can a 30-day challenge change your life? Sounds impossible, right? Believe it or not, there are a few key challenges that, when tackled head-on, can completely alter your life for the better. What do you want to accomplish in the next 30 days? Do challenges help motivate you to stay consistent? If you have a goal to improve your health and fitness this year here is a list of 30-day challenges that will change your life.

12 Challenges that will change your life in 30 days:

• Drink more water each day
• No sugar for 30 days
• Plank challenge
• Push-up 
• Meditating
• Journaling
• Walking 10k steps a day
• Ab challenge
• Yoga
• Eat a vegetable at every meal
• Practice Gratitude
• Repeat daily Affirmations

Drink more water

Drink more water each day. The biggest benefit of drinking plenty of water is hydration. Hydration is important! Because it provides better transportation of nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. And helps to keep your skin and hair healthy. 

Try to drink at least half your body weight in ounces per day. So if you’re 150 pounds, you should drink at least 75 ounces a day. But if you’re active, you might need more. 

Challenge yourself to drink more water each day. It’s good for your health!

No Sugar

I’ve already had experience with cutting sugar from my diet for 30-days. I’m a fan of Whole30 and one of the eliminations you make is no sugar. Eliminating sugar from your diet sounds easy but sugar hides everywhere.

The obvious way to cut out sugar is to stay away from treats like ice cream and cookies.

But if you fully want to cut out sugar from your diet you have to read ingredient labels closely. Many products have sugar as an ingredient. Like store-bought chicken broth or a jar of jalapenos.

Plank 30 Day Challenge

Planks are a great way to work your core and improve your balance.  They’re also a great way to improve your posture.

A plank is a bodyweight exercise that strengthens the core and improves balance. Planks can be done with different variations and for different lengths of time.

Planks work many important muscles in your body including the abs, lower back muscles, booty, thighs, arms, and shoulders.

To do a plank you’ll start in a push-up position. Then keep your arms straight or rest on your elbows. Focus on keeping your hips lifted up off the ground and engaging your abs.

PopSugar has a 30-day plank challenge that’ll have you holding a plank for 5 minutes by the end of the 30 days.

Push-Up 30 Day Challenge

Push-ups are a great way to build upper body strength and tone your arms and shoulders. Also, push-ups can improve your posture and prevent lower back injuries.

This is a great challenge to help improve your strength and endurance. Perform as many push-ups as you can in one minute, then repeat the next day. Try to increase the number of push-ups each time you do the challenge.

If you can’t do a push-up, start with wall or knee push-ups. And work your way up to doing full bodyweight push-ups.

Try this 30-day challenge from Shape. You’ll work on upper body strength throughout the 30 days.

Meditating

Basically, meditation is to focus on your breathing and clearing your mind. Doing this for a short amount of time each day can lead to health benefits. These benefits include improved sleep, less stress, and boosting your immune system.

Check out this post Basics of Meditation for Beginners to find out the different types of meditation and the benefits of meditating.

Do You has a 30-day meditation challenge you can try for free. You’ll find balance and zen with this challenge.

Journaling

Writing your thoughts daily can help with your mental and physical health. Journaling can make you more mindful and aware of what’s going on in your life. After journaling for 30 days you’ll have more insight into your mental and physical health.

For your mental health, journaling helps you figure out what is causing your stress. It lets you see what makes you anxious. And can help with your depression.

For physical health, journaling can help you lose weight or maintain your weight. And find out why you don’t feel well.

Here’s a beginner’s guide to help you start a journaling routine.

Walk 10k steps Each Day

Walking has many benefits including improved heart health, lower blood pressure, and cholesterol levels as well as decreased risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The average person walks around 5000 steps per day so increasing it to 7000-10000 steps a day will help with the improvement of overall health. Track how many steps you take each day with a fitness tracker or an app on your phone to see your progress.

Ab 30 Day Challenge

Having a strong core is important for athletes and non-athletes alike. Not only does a strong core improve your balance and stability, but it also helps protect your spine from injury.

You don’t have to do hundreds of sit-ups each day to have a strong core. Check out this 30-day Ab Challenge from Prevention Magazine.

You’ll do more than crunches. The challenge will have you doing bird dogs, planks, mountain climbers, and more.

Yoga

Yoga has many benefits including improved strength, flexibility, and balance. It’s is also low impact on joints while developing core stability to improve your overall fitness. Also, Yoga is easy to do wherever you are. You need a little bit of space and maybe a mat.

Yoga with Adriene is a great resource for those new to practicing yoga.

Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is a great way to improve your health and wellness. According to research, it can reduce stress, increase happiness levels, and overall satisfaction with life. Gratitude is easy to practice by keeping a gratitude journal or writing down three things you’re grateful for each day in a notebook.

Here is a Gratitude Journal that will help you practice gratitude all year long.

Daily Affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements you say to yourself. If done correctly, affirmations can help shape your thinking patterns and behaviors in a way that is more productive for the goals you want to achieve. When it comes to health and wellness, affirmations can help increase motivation, confidence, and feelings of self-efficacy.

Here’s a list of 25 Daily Affirmations to help you improve your mindset.

Eat More Veggies

Eating more vegetables has many health benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases. Choose a variety of vegetables to get the most benefit, including dark leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and colorful fruits and vegetables.

Add at least 5 servings per day. Add them to your regular meals or have them as snacks. 

If you’re not a fan of vegetables try cooking them a different way. Instead of steaming broccoli try roasting it. You can also substitute vegetables for stables you usually have in meals. Like using cauliflower rice instead of rice. 

Why do a 30 day challenge?

I know I’m more successful when I am following a challenge. The only time I eat healthier and am committed to sticking to it is when I am on the Whole30. Whole30 is a 30-day elimination diet where you cut out certain groups of food. Such as legumes, grains, sugar, and alcohol. Whenever I do a Whole30 it gets me in the right mindset to commit to eating better.

So committing to a 30-day challenge myself with different health and wellness goals will help me improve areas in my life I want to work on. What do you want to accomplish in the next 30 days? Do challenges help motivate you to stay consistent? If you try one of these12 challenges let me know in the comments below:)