7 Day Challenge

Almost daily, I read about a hobby or hear about a way of life that I think is something I’d like to do. But the amount of time you can spend trying new things is staggering, and somewhat intimidating. Sure, I want to be the best rock-climber, environmentalist, cross-stitcher that anyone’s ever met – but I also have a full-time job, family, friends and a new dog that keep me pretty busy. Reading the mail without getting distracted is tough; sticking to a good habit? Forget about it. So I thought of an idea.

People (including me) are obsessed with deadlines. “I’ll lose 15 pounds in 3 weeks.” “The house will be organized by November 1st.” “I promise I’ll start caring about my job tomorrow.” They usually serve only to stress you out and make you feel like a failure when the deadline has come and gone and you’re still an overweight, messy person who sucks at their job. But I’m going to use a deadline to my advantage. I am going to try all sorts of things that seemed too hard or time-consuming before …. For just one week.

I’m calling it the 7-day challenge. You can do anything for just 7 days, right? You can eat healthy or stop drinking alcohol. You can endure a visit from your in-laws. You can go without food, even water I think (might have to fact-check that one ….. Google just told me I’d be dead after 3 days-so we won’t try that one). These challenges will vary in their difficulty and type. I might try living a fairly extreme lifestyle for 7 days. I might try going without something that’s considered pretty necessary in our modern culture. I might try learning a new skill and see how good I get at it after 7 days. Or I might try doing something that I’ve always wanted to do, but been scared s***less to try. I have no set goal and no idea what will be considered success with some of these challenges. I’m just looking to learn a lot, have some personal growth, and feel like I’m accomplishing something that wasn’t easy to do.

Along those lines, I’ve decided what my first 7-day challenge will be and it’s the one thing I’ve ALWAYS wanted to try. I will start working on a stand-up comedy routine today (trust me – I don’t have anything written down yet) and perform it one week from tonight at the Minneapolis Acme Comedy Club Open Mic Night. This won’t be easy. Because everyone thinks they’re funny in that I-can-make-my-friends-and-coworkers-laugh sort of way. But it took me a long time to discover that what I think is funny, witty sarcasm sometimes gets misconstrued as plain old bitchy. So I may very well suck at this. But it’s one of those things on my bucket list and that’s part of what this project is about for me.

So here I go! I will update during the week about my progress .. here’s hoping I follow in the mighty footsteps of Carrot Top, Pauly Shore, and the guy that smashes the fruit.

-Paige (the CEO of the Warehouse:-)