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At the start of August, many readers of this blog joined me as we launched the Success Professor’s 31 Day Challenge. The basic premise of the challenge is that you can do a lot in 31 days by focusing in on one area of your life that you want to improve.  As we have moved past the mid-point of this challenge it is a great time to revisit the challenge, renew our focus, and to report on progress.

What are you working on?

Did you decide to make a change in this 31 day challenge? If so, what are you working on? Are you improving your website? Learning a new skill or ability? Or making specific steps to grow your business? The first step in a 31 day challenge is to know what you want to work on and be specific. If you have been working on something, use the comments of this post to report your progress.

You can start today!

If you didn’t join us on the 31 day challenge at the start of August, you can start today.  Each set of 31 days can be perfect for you to grow in some area. Read the original post to give you an understanding of the purpose, and then pick something you want to improve and start today.

This excellent e-book helps you build a better blog.

Personal progress:

My 31 day challenge focused on improving this blog.  I have been using ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s ebook “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” as a guideline.

A sample of my accomplishments this month include:

• regular posting schedule set and followed – this is the first time in several months that I have kept a regular posting schedule

• two guest post written and submitted – one published and one accepted for future publication.

• added “Stumble It” button to the bottom of each post

• increased participation on Twitter

The difficult part for me has been keeping up with the daily schedule in Rowse’s ebook. The activities are great, but some times take more time than I have available.  Add into that a couple of business trips and I am a little behind.  I will continue to progress through the activities both for the rest of the 31 days of August and beyond as needed.  The ideas in the book are great.

Participant Profile – Kyle Durand – www.entrepreneurialadvocate.com

Question #1 – Tell us about yourself: Who are you? What do you do?

If you asked me this three years ago, I would have told you I was a career U.S. military officer and an attorney.  I joined the U.S. Navy when I was 17 and rose through the ranks by doing all the “right” things. I qualified as a nuclear power technician, I graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, I led troops in combat situations at sea and on land, I graduated near the top of my law school class, etc.

To the outside observer, I appeared to have a “successful” career, but inside, I felt unsatisfied and longing for more.  As I moved up the ranks, I moved increasingly further away from working with people in a personal capacity and more towards becoming a cog in a huge bureaucratic machine.

I also became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of flexibility I was accorded to pursue my interests and enjoy life with my wife, Cynthia.  I started taking a close look at my interests and skill sets and was struck by how incongruent they were with my career at the time.  I truly enjoyed starting businesses and helping people start and run their businesses more effectively. I launched my first business when I was seven years old and had used my legal training again and again to help others do the same while in the military.

After my last deployment to Iraq, I made the decision to leave the military and follow my passion of assisting entrepreneurs in reaching their business dreams.

I now run Precept Law Group, a full service business and legal consulting firm in the Seattle area. We work closely with entrepreneurs to plan and launch their businesses and to educate new and seasoned business owners on the management and implications of business operations.

In my spare time, I explore the outdoor adventures available in the Northwest United States and travel around the country participating in long distance cycling events and triathlons.

Question #2 – What made you decide to join the Success Professor 31 day challenge? What is your goal for the challenge?

My goal for the challenge is to re-design, improve and grow my blog, The Entrepreneurial Advocate (www.entrepreneurialadvocate.com).  I enjoy blogging and connecting with other small business owners online (via twitter, facebook, etc), but the blog has fallen off my radar over the past few months.  I want to reinvigorate it with a new design, a new logo and new content.

Question #3 – How is it going? What benefits have you received?
The re-design is going great.  I hired a graphic artist to produce a new logo, and I created a new blog layout myself using the Thesis theme as a foundation.  There are still a number of elements that need work, but I’m happy with the progress.

As for the content, I purchased the ProBlogger workbook prior to August 1st and have been working to stay up with the tasks assigned for each day.  Content production has been the most difficult part of this 31 day challenge for me.

The ProBlogger workbook has been an outstanding resource for learning the nuts and bolts of creating content, promoting a blog and connecting with other bloggers. When this challenge is over, I will have to go back through the book several times in an effort to more fully absorb all of the information it contains.  But, I have learned a great deal about what it takes to build and operate a blog and have even more respect for those who put in the time and effort required to create a successful web presence.

Question #4 – What does success mean to you?

Success to me is living life to its fullest while contributing to society by doing work that really matters.  I have a personal mantra that I try to follow every day, “Seize Life’s Adventures.”

I truly believe that if you follow your passion and give more than you expect to get, success will necessarily find you.

After all, what more “success” can you obtain in life than feeling that you’ve made your best, most worthwhile contribution to the world, and that other people’s lives have been enhanced by your presence?

Thank you for creating the 31 day challenge and inspiring me to improve my blog!  It has been a great learning experience and a fun undertaking.  Now, to figure out what I’ll work on improving next month…

Thank you for your time and support, Kyle.

Written by:

Danny Gamache – The Success Professor

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You can do a lot of things in 31 days. This is amplified if you focus those 31 days on improving one area of your life. By focusing in on one thing you want to change or do, and making it a priority for 31 days, you will make lasting life changes.

During the next 31 days you could:

• learn a new skill
• lose weight
• create a new habit (getting up early, exercising, etc..)
• start a new business
• put in massive action on your current business
• read several life-changing books (see my top ten book list)
• start, improve and grow your blog
• reinvigorate your marriage
• dramatically increase your website’s exposure
• start a debt free plan
• simplify your household possessions
• conquer a fear

Naturally the list keeps going. You can do so much in 31 days.

Guess what?

August is about to start, and it has 31 days!

What are you going to do in August?

The Success Professor’s 31 Day Challenge

During the month of August, this blog will be hosting a challenge. The challenge is for readers to pick something to focus on during the next 31 days to change your life.

The concept is pretty simple:

• You pick something in your life that you want to do or change in the next 31 days.
• You share in the comments of this article what you will change as part of the challenge
• You get started and do what you set out to do
• You report back how you are progressing

Throughout the month, this blog will feature several update posts. These will be opportunities for you to post your update and record your progress and challenges. The purpose is to provide you with the motivation and the accountability to make a change, to do something important and to make the next 31 days extremely valuable. Further, during each of these updates, I will profile one participant by sharing about their goal and experiences.

What I Will be Doing For the 31 Day Challenge

Naturally, I will participate in the challenge myself. My focus for this challenge will be to make improvements to and grow this blog. I will be following the guide book created by ProBlogger, Darren Rowse, called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog.” My hope is that you will notice the difference. I hope that you will see me in more places on the internet, and that many others will join us in this community. I will use the challenge updates to report on my progress as well.

If you are a blogger, you may want to join me in using the 31 days in the Success Professor’s 31 Day challenge to improve your blog. Pick up the ProBlogger workbook and comment below. There will be an optional email list set up for the people who are working towards a better blog this month. This will provide an extra support platform for this goal.

So what’s next?

Pick the one thing you will change, improve, or do in the next 31 days.
Share what you will work on in the comments below.
Get started!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Do you remember what you were like as a teenager? No, I am not talking about the awkwardness and struggles with self identity or the clumsiness as you wonder about who your next date will be. I am talking about how you looked at the future. The optimism you had about who you could become and what you could do in life. Chances are your thought process was much different than it is today after you have been beaten up by life a little. It is time to change that, to reconnect with your teenage-self, and start thinking big again.

Have Big Dreams

As a teenager you probably had big dreams about life. Think back to that time. What did you dream about? What were your hopes for the future? At one point, I remember dreaming about being able to retire young and play golf every day. Your dreams at this age are not limited by life experiences. There isn’t as much that you think “I couldn’t do that” or “that’s not possible”. Instead you believed that it was possible to live your dreams.

Do Anything/ Achieve Anything

Chances are you believed that you could do anything in life. You could achieve whatever you wanted to. What did you want to achieve? Did you have a list of what you wanted to do in life? If so, your list was probably very extensive. The world was in front of you and you could aim to do anything you wanted to. It was all possible.

Change the World

Not only did you believe that you could do things for yourself, but you knew that you could make a difference. You could change the world. Your dreams were not small dreams limited to yourself, they were world changing. What impact did you want to have on the world? What was the thing that you wanted to change, for the betterment of all humanity?

Unshakable Confidence

The most interesting thing is that your mindset didn’t stop with big dreams and a belief that you could do anything, achieve anything and even change the world. That dream was combined with an unshakable confidence that not only could you do it, but you would do it. You would achieve more, have more and be more. You would make a difference in the world. You would make your dreams come true.

So What Happened?

A drastic change occurred. Likely you don’t have those same dreams anymore. You likely do not see yourself changing the world, and while you have goals you likely have much smaller goals than the “teenage-you”. Somehow things changed.

This change didn’t happen all at once. It was a gradual change. It happened step by step in your life as things didn’t quite go the way you thought it would. One disappointment at a time, you slowly began to accept less in life. You started to lower your goals and to dream of smaller goals.

Photo by: The Consumerist

It started small. Maybe you didn’t get into your top choice for a college. Perhaps you didn’t get the summer job you hoped for. Later, the disappointments got a little bigger. You graduated from college and ended up working in a fast-food restaurant or a retail store. This wasn’t what you went to college for! You started to think more about paying off your student loans than about the dreams you used to have.

Over time, step by step, the burdens of life and the disappointments that occur have diminished your dreams. As a result, you set smaller goals, and you began to accept less and less out of life.

What Can You Do?

It is time to get your dreams back. No, they don’t have to be the same dreams you had as a teenager – although some of them might be. It is not the actual dreams that you need to get back, but your ability to dream; your ability to think big about life, to see the world as full of possibilities instead of full of limitations. It is about being able to see yourself as capable of achieving big things, and getting back your unshakable confidence.

The Irony of It All

The irony of the situation is that you are now in a better place to achieve big goals. You are now far better prepared to do big things, to live an extraordinary life. You have more skills and abilities. You may have more education, or at least a lot more life experience. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You have more connections, a bigger network. You have more potential!

Combine the Two

In the end, what you need to do is combine the two sides. Combine the energy, belief, and dreams of your teenage-self, with the knowledge, wisdom and abilities of the current you! The trick of course is to combine them without letting your current mindset and beliefs takeover again. Stick to your big dreams. Stick to your unwavering belief that you will achieve your goals, and stick to the attitude that comes from those beliefs. This change in mindset and attitude will take time. You will need to work at it and create a new habit of thinking. But if you do work at it, you can replace your current thinking with the type of dreaming that was true of your teenage-self.

When you combine the two, you will move forward rapidly towards your goals. You are better than you think you are and by connecting with the teenage-you, you can reach your dreams, achieve more than you imagine, and you can change the world.

Written by:

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Deadlines are an extremely valuable tool to use as you pursue your goals. As a college professor, I see this all too clearly.  If assignments didn’t have deadlines, most students wouldn’t complete them.  If you left every deadline until the end of the course, all of the work would be done at the end of the course.  Deadlines naturally spur people, pushing them to complete the project at hand.

The same phenomenon can be seen when you are preparing to go on a vacation.  Have you ever noticed how much more work you get done on the day before you leave? It is because you have a firm deadline looming, and tasks that need to get done before you leave.

This phenomenon can be used as you pursue your goals.  Having a deadline will force you to move forward. You will need to work hard to reach your goal by the deadline, and as the deadline gets near it will inspire you focus hard and get the project done.

Here is how to make use of deadlines to help you reach your goals more quickly:

1. Make a deadline for every major goal that you are pursuing.

Every major goal you have needs an accompanying deadline.  If the goal is important enough for you to set and pursue then it is important enough to have a deadline for completing it. If you set the deadline for the major goal, you can then break down the goal into monthly and weekly components that will help you stay on the right timeline.

Some of your life goals may be continual, or ongoing, goals.  These might better considered habits that you are working to create.  For me, these include things such as working out five times a week, writing five days a week etc.  While they don’t need to have an extra deadline, you should do a weekly review of all of these goals to ensure that you are making progress.  By doing this you are able to create a weekly deadline to have completed that task the number of times you want.  So, for example, my workout goal has a weekly deadline; to reach it I need to have worked out five times by the end of the week.

2. Make the deadlines external

The best deadlines are deadlines that are set for you by someone else. For students the deadline for handing in an assignment often helps them have the surge in energy needed to finish.  For you it might be the tax filing deadline that creates action as you drop other things to get your taxes done.  Both of these are examples of external deadlines.

As you set personal deadlines for achieving goals, you need to hold yourself to them like an external deadline. You can do this by putting some form of external pressure on your internal goals.  You can do this by:

• sharing the deadline with many people around you so that they hold you accountable and apply peer pressure
• placing your deadline around an existing external deadline, such as a vacation, holiday or special event (ie. making your goal to complete your project before you leave for an Easter weekend trip)
• giving yourself a significant reward, but only if you complete your goal before a set deadline
• committing to someone else that you will complete something by a certain time so that they can take the next step in the project
• having a partner that you work with and both share the same deadline

Any of these methods can help increase the power of your deadline by applying external pressure.

3. Make the deadlines firm

Many times people who are pursing a goal will set a deadline only to continually be pushing back the deadline because they aren’t going to reach the goal.  You need to make the deadline firm. There cannot be any extensions.  You simply need to get it done.  If you get in the habit of giving yourself extensions you will start to rely on them.  Eventually you will get in the habit of never reaching the deadlines that you set for yourself.

4. Make the deadlines appropriate

You deadline needs to be appropriate.  This means that the deadline cannot be too easy to reach, or too hard. If it is too easy, you simply won’t get started because you will always believe you have all the time in the world to complete your goal.  After all, you believe the goal is really easy to achieve by the deadline.  Unfortunately when this happens the time will fly by and you may not think about the deadline again until it is too late.  You need a deadline that will cause you to get started right away.

The deadline also can not be too hard.  If the deadline looks like it cannot be met, you will quickly become discouraged and stop pursuing the deadline; you will give up, because you don’t believe you can succeed in time.

Instead, make the deadline challenging, but reachable. In order to do that you will need to learn your tendencies.  Do you tend to overestimate what you can accomplish with your time, or underestimate your ability?  I tend to overestimate how much work I can get done with my time.  Because of this, I need to make the deadline a little easier to reach than I would first expect.  If I expect that I can get a project done in two weeks, I better give myself a deadline of three or four weeks to be more realistic.  Some people work the opposite and always think a project will take longer than it really does.  If you fit into that category, set the deadline for a shorter period of time than you might first expect.

5. Complete, Celebrate, Commence

These three Cs are the cycle for achieving goals with a deadline.  The first C is to complete the project you are working on.  Work really hard towards a goal with the focus on completing it. If you are like me, you likely have the tendency to have a number of project lying around that are started, perhaps even near completion and yet not finished.  One place I notice this in my life is how many books I have partially read.  Often I find myself part way through several books, but not completing any of them. To break this trend, focus on completing the project.  You can set a new deadline for completing the project if you are nearly done well before the original deadline.

The second C is to celebrate.  Once you have completed a major project or met a major goal you need to pause and celebrate.  Find a way to celebrate that is a true reward. For me, a steak dinner at my favorite restaurant is a great reward for completing a major project.  This has to be something you do rarely enough that it truly feels like a great celebration.  Your celebrations may change from goal to goal depending on what feels like a reward to you in the moment.  Bigger goals that took more time and effort to achieve should have a bigger celebration than small goals.

The final C is to commence.  After you have celebrated, you need to commence progress towards your next goal; set a deadline and get going.  Notice that this final C does not take place until after you have completed the previous goal and celebrated its achievement. If you start sooner, you’ll end up with too many projects to focus on.

Using deadlines that are firm, appropriate and have external pressure will help you make progress more rapidly towards your goal.  Set deadlines for all of your major goals and then follow the cycle of the four Cs to reach those goals.  You will quickly move onwards and upwards towards the success you desire.

Written by:

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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Hello everyone,

It feels great to be back in the flow of writing for this blog.  Today’s links are a collection of great links to help you reach your goals more quickly.

1. Alex Shalman writes about how to Set Goals With the End in Mind.

2. Learn how to use Benchmarks to reach success from Pick The Brain.

3. Zen Habits shares 7 Tips to Achieve More.

4. Seth Godin suggests that you SPRINT! towards goals!

5. Scott H Young says that you should Say Hi.

Enjoy these, and have a great week!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

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