What a great idea @haideralmosawi shared, about the 100-day challenge: 

This Monday will be 100 days away from 1 January 2020. So rather than start with your New Years Resolutions when the new year begins, why not start BEFORE the New Year and hit the ground running? You can learn a lot about yourself in the 100 days before the new year. What can you accomplish in 100 days? How can you build momentum for yourself before the new year? What do you want to CELEBRATE on 1 January instead of promising yourself you will do? 

This idea reminded me of the Awesome August monthly challenge that a few of us did here on 200wad, only slightly longer. If the monthly, 30-day challenge is for growth experimentation, then a 100 days sound like it’s for growth implementation and consolidation. James Clear, the habits expert of Atomic Habits, also shared some science on how long it takes for a habit to become automatic - on average, 66 days. Many of us writing here on 200wad tend to find our groove after writing everyday for 100 days, so a 100-day challenge sounds about right. 

I also love the inverse spin on the infamous New Year’s resolution - instead of starting the new year with resolutions and goals we never complete, why not start the new year celebrating the goals we accomplished! That definitely goes along in the spirit of celebration of the New Year. Typically, the festive period at the end and beginning of the year are difficult, high-friction environments to create new habits anyway, while starting on new things nearing the end of the year has a certain sense of urgency. The year is ending, and what have I accomplished? Easier to ride on the urgency of an impending deadline than the luxury of a whole year ahead of you, isn’t it?

Besides, “100” is a tidy number and a “100-day challenge” has a nice marketing ring to it! A quick search on Google showed a few versions of it already - for personal growth, for gambling - so it’s not new new! I’m definitely interested to try it now. Will muse about it to see what I can do for 100 days……