The Birth of the T-Day Challenge

How do you spend your Tuesdays and Thursdays?

You probably don’t even know. Most of these days are lost amid our everyday lives.

This is a huge mistake. Because Tuesdays and Thursdays do matter.

Let me tell you a story…

An ordinary Tuesday morning

You’re on a train carriage in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s minus six degrees and two high school students sit and ponder about their dreams for the future.

It’s a Tuesday morning  and they look around the carriage for inspiration. They get nothing. Passengers are bored and barely look at each other.

Well, this is dull. A twinge of fear overcomes them. Is this what life is all about? Hopping from one station and then get off at the next.

Surely, there is another more meaningful way to live your everyday life.

A lesson from playing tag

It starts with a tag.

“You’re it” one says to another. “No, you’re it.”

And so the chase continues between the two students – all the way to school.

None of them will give up because they both like to win.  When they reach school, they tag other classmates who in turn tag other classmates… By the end of the day, the whole school joins the game and the joy spreads like wildfire.

Why?

Because people yearn for something to happen. Anything, really, to interrupt the mediocre rhythm of the everyday.

And when it does, they join immediately. They may be hesitant at first, but once someone else takes the initiative, they’re willing to follow.

That’s because people love movement, but they rarely move by themselves. Most of us merely react to the world around us. But if we want to live a rich everyday life, we must choose to do it the other way around.

A rich everyday life starts when we take action.

The Birth of the T-day challenge

Without knowing it, the students had taken action. They had challenged themselves and the world around them.

This small act was the starting point for a much bigger commitment:  the T-day challenge.

Every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of the term, the two students challenged each other. The T-day challenges ranged from small, trivial pursuits to more life changing alternatives. These included:

• Drop the word “watermelon” in as many conversations as possible (in a way that *sort of* made sense).
• Give your number to a complete stranger (we used napkins back in the day, but I’m sure your phone works fine)
• Introduce yourself to five new people
• Taste something you’ve never tried before
• Apply to college

The list goes on, but the truth is T-day challenges change lives. Me and my best friend still do it to this day. One of my most recent T-day challenges was to do a skydive and defeat my fear of heights.

The beauty with a T-day challenge is that it can be what you want it to be. You only have 24 hours to finish it and then it’s over. Awful or wonderful doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you tried and you made something out of your day. You took action and plunged forward.

But more importantly, it’s a mindset. You make sure every day counts.

Your T-day Challenge

Since you’re new to this, I’m going to give you an easy one to start with.

Write a list of challenges you’d like to undertake in a near future. 

Sit down and listen to your own voice. Get to know your own fears. You will be a happier and richer person because of it.

P.S. If you know what you’re doing for your next T-day, let us know in the comments! Yes, that’s a challenge