In this conversation, Cheryl McColgan introduces the Healthy Habits Challenge, emphasizing the importance of choosing three focus areas for personal growth over the next 30 days.

She discusses the significance of daily movement, consistency, and mindfulness in forming new habits. The challenge encourages participants to track their progress and integrate meaningful habits into their daily lives, ultimately aiming to reduce overwhelm and enhance motivation.

Choose three focus areas for the next 30 days.
Daily movement should be at least 10 minutes.
Focus on what is meaningful to you.
Track your progress to stay motivated.
Customize the challenge to fit your lifestyle.
Reduce overwhelm by having clear priorities.
Practice discipline through repetition and consistency.
Integrate new habits into your daily routine.
Eliminate decision fatigue with focused goals.

Watch on YouTube

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Episode transcript

Cheryl McColgan (00:01.048)
Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of Feel Nourish Grow and welcome to day one of the Healthy Habits Challenge. I’m really excited to get this started and kick this off with you. This, if you’re in 2026, this is the first year I’ve started this, starting on January 1st, but the awesome thing is it’s available anytime. So whenever you’re hearing this, this is your day one. So today is to choose your three focus areas.

We’re doing discipline as repetition as consistency. It is just something that you learn over time, but you do have to practice it. You don’t have to be perfect. You just need to do it. And so today’s habit won’t take you too long at all. You’re going to choose the three focus areas for the next 30 days and then write the smallest version of each one that still counts. And so this could be things for you. I mean, we have the daily movement, which is 10 minutes a day.

So if you already have a really regular exercise program, maybe you commit to adding one day a week of some new movement or maybe it’s a slightly longer movement or maybe your focus area is working on your spirituality or maybe it is mindfully drinking if you drink alcohol. I actually have some friends over at Sunnyside.

And they are doing a totally free challenge for this month too that focuses on just being more mindful around drinking. You don’t have to do a totally dry January. It can be kind of a semi dry January. But anyway, they are offering that for totally free. You don’t even have to put your credit card in. I’ve got a special link for that and I will make sure that that is in the show notes and down below for you if you’re on YouTube. So it could be that could be your focus area. It could be your relationships, focusing on your relationships.

taking more time to connect with people or to make sure that you communicate with certain people on a daily basis in a certain way. So really it’s just going to be whatever is meaningful to you. I want you to pick those three focus areas and the way that you’ll carry that throughout the challenge is ideally you’re going be tracking in some way. So I’ve designed a spreadsheet tracker for you and that is in the email. You’ll copy that and then you can use it to just check off the things you’re doing.

Cheryl McColgan (02:14.39)
You can also use it to make a note of what your three focus areas are. And so ideally, every day when you get the email and or watch the video or listen to the podcast, I want you to have those three focus areas in mind and see if there’s a way that you can integrate the habit that we’re trying into those focus areas so that it’s really meaningful to you. It won’t always work. There will be some of the habits that you’ll just be trying just to try and they won’t necessarily relate to your three areas of focus.

but you’re just going to be mindful on a daily basis of these focus areas and keep those as something in the back of your mind that you’re always trying to work towards. And if there’s any way that you can integrate it with the daily habit, then that’s even better. So this is all you have to do today, along with your 10 minutes of daily movement, because that’s going to be every single day. And this is any movement that works for you. There’s more explanation about it in the email, but it could be really anything canoeing, biking, running, walking, dancing, yoga.

just any kind of joyful movement, ideally something that gets your heart rate up just a little bit. So depending on where you are in your fitness journey, that can literally just be walking around the block or say, you know, that you’re a runner. Maybe you make a new habit around 30 days to do something slightly different with that, whether it’s increasing your speed or taking more days off. If that’s something that you need, I want you to really just honor your body, but you’re still going to move your body for 10 minutes every single day.

So if you’re already very, very active, that might look something more like on your day that’s supposed to be a rest day. Maybe it’s just some gentle stretching or mobility work. So really you’re going to customize this challenge so that it works exactly well for you. But anyway, starting with your focus areas, it just creates clear priorities throughout this 30 day challenge. It’s going to reduce overwhelm because you’re just going to focus on those three things right now, nothing else outside of that. That’s not to say that you don’t have other goals or other things that you want to prioritize in the future.

But for this 30 days, we just want to give clear focus to these three so we can really give those a chance to take hold. And this clarity is just, like I said, reduce your overwhelm. It’s going to eliminate decision fatigue because any time there’s a question, you just go back to those three priorities and you’re going to make that very clear in your mind that’ll help you make your decision. And so you just spend less time deciding and more time doing ideally with those high priorities in mind.

Cheryl McColgan (04:34.478)
It should also just take a little less mental energy when you know that those are your priorities and you’ve already decided that’s what you’re focused on for this 30 days should make everything a little bit easier. So I would also like you to consider if you’re a person that this kind of motivation works for you instead of just having it, know, on your phone in a tracker app and there’ll be some links in that first email for apps that I like and things that you can use. But it’s also nice to just maybe see it in the morning when you get up. So if you always

you know, go in the bathroom to get ready in the morning, maybe writing your three focus areas for the month on a sticky note and putting it on your mirror or making it your screen saver on your phone, just somewhere where you’re going to see it often enough that it keeps it high priority in your mind. And then also consider each day as you go through this challenge, you’re going to get the habit in the morning and your email and

Most of these, there should be plenty of time throughout the day to fit this in. Like I said, it only takes five to 15 minutes, but also just consider what your day looks like on a daily basis and maybe kind of mentally map out a time where you’re going to plan to do this habit. So maybe for you, it’s morning, lunch or evening, or maybe it’s a very specific time of the day. You could set a timer on your phone. Like usually when you have a little, maybe you have a little downtime, you set the timer and then that’s when you’ll do the habit for the day.

So that’s some ideas on just how to integrate it and make it easier. But like I said, today, every day is going to be a very simple habit. take five to 15 minutes. So identifying these three focus areas, I think for most people it will come to mind pretty quickly. But you can certainly take a little bit more time if you really want to mentally evaluate where you’ve been in your life lately and what three areas could use the most work. So this.

in theory could be the longest day of habits, but it’s going to set you up for success for the whole month. But for a lot of us, we kind of already know which areas we should be working on. And so coming up with those three might even only take you two to three minutes. So anyway, best of luck today. As always, if you’re having super challenges during this time and or you have questions about the program, most of these things should be pretty obvious. And some of the things are a little bit ambiguous on purpose so that it gives you some flexibility. So as long as you are making

Cheryl McColgan (06:57.462)
you know, having your three priorities, making those the thing that you’re going to focus on and then trying the one habit for the day. That’s really all that you need to do. So until tomorrow, good luck with the habits today and I will see you soon.