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The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Wednesdays Number 111: How to Use Challenges to Achieve Your Goals
Dear Reader,
The challenges we set for ourselves can be used to achieve our goals. However, we can use the challenges that others host as well.
Achieving a goal is often a matter of breaking it down into smaller steps and then working through them until they are completed. This is where the idea of setting challenges comes in. Challenges are a way to break down large tasks into manageable chunks and make sure that you stay on track with your progress.
Challenges can be created for any goal, but they work best when they are specific and measurable. For example, if you want to get in shape, you might participate in a 5-Day Fitness Challenge to kickstart your weight loss journey.
The Art of Learning membership site is on a learning management system. Most people move their websites over to that platform. I’ve been wary of doing that and had planned to make the site a subdomain of The Invisible Mentor. Last week I decided against it and got the Art of Learning its own domain. On the learning management system, I have a blog that I don’t pay much attention to. In a year, I have less than 15 posts.
One of my goals this year is to write one blog post a week on the Art of Learning. The hesitation about writing content there is that I don’t want duplicate content and I don’t want that blog to cannibalize The Invisible Mentor blog. This week, I’m participating in a 5-Day Blogging Challenge, and it’s giving me fresh content for the Art of Learning blog.
In addition, I’ve been using artificial intelligence writing software programs to get blog post ideas. This feels more manageable now.
The membership fee for the Art of Learning is low right now as I build out the content, and as I identify more benefits to add to support your success. Gift yourself a membership. You’re worth it.
In the Ask Avil section of this newsletter, I’ll delve more deeply into how to use challenges to achieve your goals. I host many reading challenges in my Facebook group. Why not join me there?
Join my Facebook group Reading Rocks: Read a Book, Discover Solutions, Change the World.
In the News
Here are some podcasts I have appeared on and magazines I’ve been featured in. They’re packed with a lot of information. I’ll also be appearing on a few podcasts, so I’ll let you know when I’ve done them.
Leaders Must be Readers (Here’s the link to the article http://magazine.diversityprofessional.com/publication/?i=735345&ver=html5&p=66)
208: Have You Been Reading Books Wrong? https://elkinsconsulting.com/sarahs-blog-podcast/2021/12/21/208
Ellevate Network: http://ow.ly/s8pR50GCBTy
Envision2BWell: https://blog.envision2bwell.io/post/1157/envisionwell-podcast-invisible-mentors
313 Challenge with Ryan Foland: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/avil-beckford-read-and-get-new-ideas/id1484382840?i=1000523572323
I would appreciate your support in growing my YouTube channel.
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Ask Avil
How Challenges Can Help You
Challenges are a great way to get started on achieving your goals. You can find a challenge to participate in for virtually any goal you want to achieve. I’ve participated in 5-Day, 30-Day, and 100-Day challenges. So, you can decide what will work for you. A 5-day challenge is the easiest to complete. But for a goal that’s very important to you, I think participating in a longer challenge will help you to develop the habit of whatever you’re working on.
A challenge can be anything from a short-term goal, like running a marathon, to something long-term, like learning how to become a chef. There are many benefits of using challenges to achieve your goals. They’re an effective way of achieving goals because they create an incentive for you to keep going. They also provide support and accountability for your success or failure. Challenges are also a great way of meeting new people who have the same goal as you do.
I must add though, that the idea of using a challenge to achieve a goal seems counterintuitive. It makes sense to go about the business of achieving the goal with a plan and a list of tasks. Sometimes a challenge can be a little too much for you to think about, but if you just take it one day at a time, you’ll find that accomplishing your goal is not as difficult as you may have imagined.
One of the things I’ve noticed about myself is that it’s difficult for me to get started. But once I get started, it gets so much easier for me. What’s one important goal that you’re trying to achieve? Conduct a search to find challenges that you can participate in. If you cannot find one, then create one for yourself. I created my first reading challenge back in 2013 as a way to work my way through the grieving process.
The challenge was to read the world and my goal was to visit 30 countries via the books I read. I accomplished my goal, but looking back, I could have done things differently. I should have added more structure, such as reading two books each week, listing the countries I would visit and so on. So, if you’re creating a challenge for yourself, break down the goal into the tasks and activities you need to perform to achieve your goal and give yourself a timeline to complete the challenge. Use challenges to your advantage to achieve a goal that’s important to you.
Reading List
I’ve started to read the books for the 100-Day Project. I like to get started, and sometimes it takes me a while to start a project. I’ll weave in some books from the following list.
- The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave by Robbie Kellman Baxter
- The Subscription Boom: Why an Old Business Model is the Future of Commerce by Adam Levinter
- Retention Point: The Single Biggest Secret to Membership and Subscription Growth for Associations, SAAS, Publishers, Digital Access, Subscription Boxes and all Membership and Subscription Businesses by Robert Skrob
- Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days by Joey Coleman
- Membership Recruitment: How to Grow Recurring Revenue, Reach New Markets, and Advance Your Mission by Tony Rossell
- The Leadership Gap by Lolly Daskal
- Brave Leadership, Kimberly Davis
- How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
- Business Model Shifts by Patrick van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz
- The Invincible Company by Alexander Osterwalder , Yves Pigneur
- Love-Based Business Models by Shawn Driscoll
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 1
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 2
- Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
- The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions . . . and Created Plenty of Controversy by Leigh Gallagher
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
- Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business by Amos Schwartzfarb
- Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great by Carmine Gallo
- I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Arrive at the American Dream by JT McCormick
- One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do by Phil Howard Cooke
The Invisible Mentor Blog/Articles Written
Blog Posts
How to Invest in Your Professional Development Even if Your Employer Won’t
How to Pair Books to Accelerate Your Career
15 Things You Never Knew About Reading Nonfiction Books
10 Common Mistakes Professionals Make When Reading Nonfiction Books
How I Came to Teach Courses on Effective Reading Strategies
The One Problem
I’ve published 45 podcast episodes already. How time flies. You can also find these on my YouTube channel.
- Mariett Ramm, Founder, the Powerful Woman, International Bestselling Author
- Sarah Elkins, Storytelling and StrengthsFinder Coach
- Debbie McKiver, Founder of the Strong and Healthy Temple
- Hedieh Safiyari, Founder, Prompt Health, Healthcare Solutions
- Benita Lee, Trade Consultant, Founder, Benita Lee Professional Corporation
- Jenny Siede, Chief Design Thinker, Green Neurons
- Pamela Jeffery, Founder, The Prosperity Project & Women’s Executive Network
- Alta Odendaal, Financial Coach and Consultant
- Larissa Russell, Founder and CEO Queer Voicez and Creative U Business
- Glain Roberts-McCabe, Founder, the Roundtable, Group Coach Academy
- Dr Marsha Carr, Professor, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
- Gabriella O’Rourke, Business Consultant, Borden Ladner Gervais
- Stefanie Booker Atchison, Wisdom Coach & Motivational Speaker
- Michelle Griffin, Founder Brandthority, Building Your Personal Brand
- Donna Knutson, Founder of Write Journeys
- Sophie Gray, Founder of DiveThru: Being Disconnected from Yourself
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Product Alert
7 Day Reading Makeover Challenge
This is an affordable program to get started on leadership reading. Leaders read to learn what they need to know. You’ll also learn how to synthesize information.
Art of Learning Membership Site
How would you like to access the best, most useful information I have, that’s better than book summaries? Buy monthly access to the Bookish Note that’s behind my paywall. I group Bookish Notes together by a common theme, turning them into a course. Imagine reading themed Bookish Notes and starting to lay the foundation for a new skill.
Until Next Week,
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!