21 Day Positive Mega Sprint

Almost 5 years ago I discovered something which really floored me. For the best part of a couple of years, it caused me to cut myself off from friends, not put my all into things I love and generally spiral out of control, not taking care of myself and drinking far too much. I’m not going to go into details of said event but as the dreaded anniversary looms how do I stop myself from being dragged back down by the memories of the despair, pain and unsettlement I was feeling at the time.

The date is 22nd June, exactly 3 weeks from today so here’s what I’m going to do instead of wallowing in a pool of self pity. I’ve set myself a challenge, a 21 day distraction to sprint towards, hopefully resulting in a positive outcome for my future. I’m going to work towards making things how I’ve always wanted them to be, so that I can sit down on the fateful day, (with my challenge being completed the day before) with a glass of something and be proud of how far I’ve come in those 5 years, how much I’ve achieved and how much things have changed, proud of how eventually I managed to pick myself back up.

This project is going to be heavily driven by lists, lists are good, ticking things off lists helps with my anxiety and I suffer heavily from the need to get stuff done NOW so a list will reassure me that it is possible to achieve everything I desire in a short space of time without having to get it all done immediately. You may ask what’s the point of a time based challenge with no actual clear end goal but for myself personally the smallest things can help my mental wellbeing -clearing stuff out, sorting finances, fixing something or making something new. Some things on the list will be day to day jobs and some will be I hope more of a lasting legacy, some are long overdue and all contribute to the fuzz in my brain, hopefully writing them all down and getting them out of my head will help me to work through and complete more things than I could ever dream possible. It’s partly a snagging list of things that lurk in my mind bothering me, things that are half painted, incompleted projects that are lying around etc. and half a scheme to introduce some practices in my routine that are positive and will hopefully stick beyond the 21 days. It’s basically 21 days of totally blasting it in the hope at the end I can be proud of how I’ve made my life a little bit better.

I have created some handy printables here that I will be using for my challenge so feel free to use them yourselves if you ever want to do your own 21 day positivity sprint. I’m going to write a diary on this site so please follow my progress and hope to start posting to my instagram again using #21DaySprint. I’ve taken the three days off work before and including the fateful day, so that I can spend some time doing things I love – baking, charity shop browsing, knitting, watching Marilyn Monroe movies, working at my allotment – distraction and fulfilment are the keys to my success.

Why 21 days

Aside from the fact that only 21 days remain between now and my day of doom. It is widely known in the health and fitness industry that you start to feel differences to your body after 21 days of consistently changing your ways, it’s not yet noticeble to other people but you are more than aware that something positive is happening to you. You are mostly able to make or break habits when routinely trying across this specific period of time of 21 days. 21 Days seems to be an ideal amount of time to try a totally new experience and experiment to hopefully produce a life-changing shift. I’m hoping that 21 days is short enough for me to have the willpower to stick at it, but also long enough to make a difference. I’ve decided to see how this 21 day positivity theory impacts on my mental wellbeing and I really hope that some consistent positive actions for 21 days will result in me being in a much better place to cope with any anxieties that may rear their ugly heads. So that’s the theory behind 21 days.

So here I go at the start of my journey, hoping positivity cancels out any other possible feelings as I career towards my dreaded day. Hopefully I may even get out the other side without even noticing. Please follow my progress, I’d love your support and also if you’d join along with me. I’ll be using the hashtag #21DaySprint to document my progress on social media and writing up a diary of daily progress. Wish me luck and most importantly please send me all your positive vibes …