On July 1st I started a 30 day challenge on improving my online marketing skills and knowledge. How well does a 30 day challenge work? The 30 Day Challenge is an assignment from my course: ‘Goal Setting 101 – How to Set and Achieve Goals 2020’. In this blog post I want to give a 30 day challenge progress update as I am just over half way through my challenge. Since I started the challenge I have been spending at least one hour per day taking courses on digital marketing and implementing ideas in my business. I am currently on day 18 of the challenge and so far I have not missed a single day. In fact I estimate that I have actually spent 45.5 hours on the challenge so far which way more than double the time input I was supposed to have given at this stage. I am extremely happy with my progress and what I am learning.

Tracking my progress

One thing that has really helped me stay on track is having a very clear record to fill in and record my daily progress. Each day I record what I am doing and the time spent. Importantly I also record what lessons I am learning. This is very motivating and I don’t want to miss a single day. Therefore if you track your progress carefully it really does help in making a 30 day challenge work.

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As you can see from the above copy of my 30 day challenge record sheet I am learning loads as I go along. You can download a copy of the template I am using here:

What I have learned so far

A key thing that I have learned is that a sole focus on results can be really frustrating. For example I have really worked hard on improving my YouTube account. I have added thumbnails, key words, tags etc. to improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This type of effort is tedious and slow (as I have noted on my record sheet a number of times). I don’t yet see any change in my results from this effort. Views have not increased. That is why it is really important to focus instead on inputs and be really happy about that. In my case that is the minimum of 1 hour per day spent learning and working on the task. I have to believe that results will come later. I think of Jim Collins and his book ‘Good to Great’ and the what he calls the Flywheel Effect. Success at anything is like pushing a heavy flywheel. It turns very slowly at first and takes a lot of effort. We have to keep pushing and eventually the flywheel builds momentum.

Best wishes, Tom

P.S. I will be giving a full analysis of my 30 day challenge when it is completed. If you are feeling stuck and lacking momentum on any of your goals try a 30 day challenge to get you unstuck! The 30 Challenge is an assignment in my course ‘Goal Setting 101 – How to Set and Achieve Goals 2020’. Please click here to find out more about the course and watch the free course preview. I look forward to seeing you on the course!