Trigger warning for those with eating disorders: This post discusses dietary restrictions.

I’m a big fan of 30-day challenges, and I’ve done a bunch of them throughout my life. Project 333, the Minimalist Game, Whole 30, a month as a vegan, 30 days of daily yoga, meditation, writing…you can make a 30-day (or 3-month, or 1-year) challenge out of just about any goal. I also frequently impose rules on myself, like the time I didn’t allow myself to buy any more clothes until I had worn every single item already in my wardrobe at least once, or when I tried the Every Other Day Diet or becoming a vegetarian. So why do I keep doing this stuff? We live in a free society! Why not just let myself do whatever I want to do in the moment?

Well, for one, I’ve found that I’m not great at moderation. This is especially the case with junk food – if you offer me one piece of candy, I will eat ten. It can also be an issue with other potentially addictive behaviors like social media use. Imposing rigid rules on myself that I announce to others helps me to be more successful at making lasting changes.

But don’t you just go back to your old habits at the end of the 30 days? Sometimes. Not every new habit sticks. Sometimes they do, though, at least partially. My challenges relating to minimalism, decluttering, and shopping have helped to transform how I view possessions and money. These experiments have changed the way I think about consumerism and acquisition. My many diet-related challenges have helped me to develop a taste for healthier foods and have given me ideas for delicious dishes and flavor combinations (limitations, after all, spark creativity). Over the years, I’ve been able to transform the nutritionally lacking, junk-food-filled diet of my youth into a diet that’s full of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and other health-promoting foods. And while I don’t do yoga, exercise, or meditate every single day, I’ve gotten used to these things being a part of my life, and I miss them when I go too long without doing them. In a way, doing something consistently and frequently for a period of time helps me to move the needle closer to moderation when each challenge is over.

Experts will tell you that the best way to break a bad habit is to identify the habit’s trigger and then replace the bad habit with a new, good habit. I’ve found that committing myself to a one-month challenge helps me to keep this habit-breaking and -building strategy top of mind for that period of time. Short-term rules and resolutions make it less likely that I’ll lapse into auto-pilot mode and momentarily forget what it is I’m supposed to be doing differently. This is especially the case when I tell others my plans and add an accountability component.

Restrictive challenges are also a way of experimenting with lifestyle design, as Joshua Becker discusses in his book The More of Less. Minimalism experiments are a great way to figure out how much you actually need, how much you really don’t need, and what the ideal balance is for you. Similarly, health-related challenges can help you to determine what kind of diet and lifestyle will make you feel your best. If something you try doesn’t leave you feeling good after a month, leave it behind and try something else. But if you find that you feel great, maybe you’ll want to stick with it. Putting a relatively short time limit on big changes makes them seem less intimidating and more manageable. I may not feel confident in my ability to, say, adopt a whole food plant based diet for the rest of my life, but I know I can do it for a month. I can do just about anything for a month. And it turns out that a month is about the amount of time it takes for a new habit to stick.

As we wrap up the first week of this year’s New Year’s Resolutions, I hope those of you who have challenged yourself to changing your habits are finding the strength to keep going. If your big goals seem to daunting, consider reframing them as a one-month challenge. When the month is over, I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Are you a fan of self-imposed rules and short-term challenges? In what ways have they been helpful to you, and in what ways might they have backfired?

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