Have you ever had a goal that you are reaching for that seems to be just out of reach? Maybe you have something that always seems to end up on your New Year’s Resolution list every year with very little to no progress. How can we make what seems to be unattainable something we can achieve?
Creating your dream reality is much more of a marathon than a sprint. With that being said, every marathon has different paces you need to run. Sprinting faster down a hill will help your marathon time even out when you have to go slower later because you are fatigued or climbing up a steep hill. So how can we apply this principle to our daily life? By implementing a sprint month!
Now you may be wondering what a sprint month is, and no, it is not a month where you sprint every day (unless that is your goal). Usually, this is a term used in business so that everyone on a team can be focused on one important task at a time so you can collectively reach your goal faster. It is a way to grow a business quickly and then maintain that growth after the month is up. This is a topic that can also be applied to your personal life. What would your life be like in 30 days if you began living like your dream self?
A sprint month is where you focus very intently on one of your goals for an entire month straight with no skip days! It is a great way to increase your momentum toward a goal that has seemed to be out of reach and get your habits in order to start attracting a better life overall. This is a great way to simplify your lifetime goals down to very small actionable steps and give you a feeling of accomplishment for completing something for 30 days straight.
Let’s create an example sprint month. Let’s say you have always had the goal to run a half marathon. You always start with great intentions on January 1st or in the spring time when it begins to get nicer outside, only to quit due to lack of time, energy, injury, or fatigue. If you wanted to do a sprint month to get you towards your goal, you could get a free 5k training program that you commit to for 30 days. You may be wondering why you would start with a 5k training plan and not go straight to a half marathon plan. That is likely the reason why you have failed this goal in the past. Just by doing a quick google search, most free half marathon plans include runs of 5-7 miles within the first 3 weeks. Most people cannot just begin by running that mileage without getting injured or losing hope in their goal. If you instead look up the couch to 5k training plan, which is an 8 week training plan for people who are more sedentary in their daily life, and commit ONLY to the first 4 weeks, you are on the right path. Once you have perfectly executed 4 weeks of an 8 week training plan, you are that much more likely to finish the goal. Maybe you will even feel motivated enough to enter a 5k road race!
What about a non-physical sprint month example? Let’s say that you are someone who has not read a book cover to cover since elementary school and you have always wondered how your friend can read 50 books a year. You may not really know where to begin with reading and are not sure which genres you even like. You have heard that reading is great for your focus and it can help you sleep better at night. It can even help to decrease your screen time! With all this in mind, you decide to start a sprint month to try out reading. You may not be sure if reading is really your thing but you know you can commit 30 days to giving it a try. On the first day of the month, you can head to a book store and choose a few books that pique your interest in different genres. Maybe you decide to try out a nonfiction book about basketball, a science fiction book written by your friend’s favorite author, a book filled with poetry, and a historical fiction book about a woman who lived in Paris during WWII. Then you commit to reading 10 pages every day for 30 days before bed every night. If you stick to this routine, maybe you discover you have a love for historical fiction, but poetry and nonfiction aren’t really your thing. You even found yourself reading more than 10 pages at a different time of day because you just can’t wait to see what will happen to the main character in your book! You finished your first book since you were six years old and have now added a habit to your daily routine that is good for you.
The best way to build confidence in yourself is through setting goals and sticking to them. Confident people set goals and then finish them, no ifs, ands, or buts. When you say you’re going to do something and then complete that goal, you have more faith in yourself and become more reliable to those in your life. Confidence is something that needs to be built and then maintained and the best way to do this is through our daily habits and goal setting.
If you are someone who says you don’t have time to complete your goals, I am going to challenge you a bit. If you take an audit of all the time you have in a day from when you wake up to when you fall asleep, is there anything you do that is not pushing you towards being a better version of yourself? As humans, we are either moving towards a healthier and happier life or a sicker and sadder life. We are never just sitting still on this spectrum. What bad habit can you replace with a good habit that will bring you towards that more vibrant life? If you are adamant you don’t have time to improve your life, what daily habits can you add something healthy to? How can you habit stack your day for success? S.J. Scott coined the phrase “habit stacking” in his 2014 book “Habit Stacking: 97 Small Changes That Take 5 Minutes or Less” and author James Clear made this even more mainstream in his book “Atomic Habits”. This is a technique where you take something you already do daily (brush your teeth or drive to work) and add another habit to it (10 squats while brushing your teeth or listening to an educational podcast on your drive to work). There’s endless possibilities to what you can habit stack in your day. If you apply habit stacking to your version of a sprint month, you may be able to make progress towards your goals without losing any time from your day at all!
One of my favorite ways to achieve my goals is to think about who I want my future self to be. What does she do every day? What does she wear? How does she interact with people? Then I like to pick 1-3 things I think she does and I do them today! If you start living like your ideal self, you can become your ideal self today! There’s also a magical shift that can happen in your life when you start working on bettering yourself and achieving your goals. There is a positive chain reaction that can occur and bring you happiness in ways you could’ve never imagined. Like my reading example before, maybe you go back to the bookstore on day 31 to get a new book, only to see that they are running a book club on that book at the end of the month. You decide to go out of your comfort zone and attend that book club to meet new people. You then happen to meet the love of your life at this book club and live happily ever after. Even though it may seem cheesy, you are always just one decision away from living a happier, more fulfilling life.
Dr. Amanda and I (Dr. Mackenzie), have begun our own version of a sprint month we began last Tuesday, June 10th. We started 75 Hard and if you have not heard of that, it is a 75 day challenge created by Andy Frisella where every day you:
- Drink a gallon of water
- Complete TWO 45 minute workouts (one MUST be outside, rain or shine)
- Take a progress photo
- Make a diet and stick to it
- Read 10+ pages of nonfiction
- Have NO alcohol and NO cheat meals
Now this may be extreme for some, and I would recommend really considering how this will impact your daily life, but it is our version of a sprint month (only it’s 75 days!). We both felt we needed a challenge in our lives that would hold us accountable and move us towards healthier and happier versions of ourselves.
Whether you want to go all out and join us in doing 75 Hard or you want to create a less time consuming sprint month for yourself, your future self will thank you. Afterall, life is nothing but a sum of our choices and the choices you make today will define your tomorrow. Now, let’s go for a sprint (month)!
More information on 75 Hard: https://andyfrisella.com/pages/75hard-info?srsltid=AfmBOorb2Tw0fNR6QbTbHToW60SD_DQPBBLpMrLWbEvhlzbMVLZpOv9h
Read another blog post about Technology Detoxing (if this is a goal you’ve had for a while): https://awakeningchiropractic.com/blog/2018-08-20/technology-detox/
Last blog post on electrolytes: https://awakeningchiropractic.com/blog/2025-06-03/electrolytes-101/