The results of the January 2003 Total Life Success 21-Day Challenge are in and are nothing less than spectacular! This Challenge, Total Life Success’ third, was the largest and most inspiring yet. In all, sixteen entrants participated, reaching for success in four life areas including Mind, Body, Spirit and Wealth. Participants worked towards success in everything from losing weight to publishing their writings; from rediscovering the joy of a life’s work to choosing serenity.
Of course it is impossible to improve one area of your life without improving the other areas (Hey! This is “Total Life Success”, right!?). For each and every goal a participant set out on, the road to success found them a myriad of other discoveries. Along the road to success Challenge participants did everything from find their life’s passion to discover inner strengths that they didn’t know they possessed. And, while the results varied widely, every participant was a winner, simply by their willingness to commit to a success greater than they started with.
Total Life Success takes great pleasure in applauding the courage, spirit and demonstrated success shown by the following participants and in the following life areas:
Dee Foster (Wealth) | Golflady8 (Mind) | Ron Barnhart (Mind) | Interested (Mind) |
Mark Farmer (Body) | Ian K. (Body) | Psych Tau (Spirit) | Giselle (Wealth) |
Artois (Mind) | Miatuka (Body) | Mermaid (Mind) | Dasbot(Spirit) |
Al Koz (Mind) | Corbob (Body) | Kilsik (Body) | Fabman (Mind) |
What It Takes To Succeed
The opening days of the Challenge were incredible with more than 2500 visitors flooding the forum a day, posting over 125 messages a day encouraging Challenge participants, offering suggestions, support and cheering their efforts. As with every new challenge every participant discovered that the status quo is never broken lightly. Each and every Challenge has found participants confronted by significant obstacles within days of beginning their efforts to improve their life.
Commitment and persistence were the name of the game. Participants who succeeded in remaining focused on success shared a number of common traits. Rather than extra- ordinary effort, superhuman resources and unworldly wisdom, successful Challenge participants:
Posted Daily. Regardless of whether the day held only success or temporary setbacks and obstacles successful Challenge participants made and kept a commitment to post their actions towards success, the day’s events, and the results of their actions daily. By bringing their Challenge efforts to the Forum every day these participants held themselves accountable and received daily encouragement, support and suggestions for success. Nearly every participant that completed the Challenge mentioned this factor as one of the factors that spelled success for them.
Saw Setbacks as Temporary Situations and Not Indications of Their Disposition. Although not every Challenge participant started with a clear vision of what temporary setbacks meant for them, ALL of the Challenge participants realized by the end of the Challenge that the setbacks that are inevitable in any effort to succeed. Successful participants realized that setbacks are temporary, overcomeable (no matter how large), and relevant only to today (and not their inevitable success). Successful Challenge participants realized that obstacles, no matter how large or frustrating, only indicated what was happening and had no bearing on who they were or what they could accomplish.
Worked for Progress, Not Perfection. Not every participant that started the Challenge finished the Challenge. Successful participants quickly realized that the ideal of “perfection” — in effort, in results or in the time and opportunity to begin working for success — simply does not exist. Rather than waiting until the stars were right or they “felt” like starting, successful participants took the words of Teddy Roosevelt to heart, starting where they were, with what they had, at that precise moment in life. By not waiting for perfection, they didn’t blindly insist that their efforts match the unrealistic ideal of perfection. They realized that insisting on perfect performance, perfect action and perfect thinking only burned themselves out, discouraged themselves and set up unrealistic barriers to success. The successful participants worked for progress towards their goal, realizing that, that is the only way to reach success.
Set Goals That Captured Their Imagination. The most successful Challenge participants set goals that mattered to them. By choosing a success that fired up their own passions Challenge participants used the power of their imagination and the power of a goal geared to their ultimate capabilities rather than boring themselves with someone else’s idea of success or of a level of success well below their capabilities. Rather than aiming too high and setting themselves up for failure; rather than aiming too low with an uninspiring and lackluster task, successful participants choose and began working on a success that stoked the fires of their potential – no matter how high they had to reach to achieve it.
The Best of Success Awards
The 21-Day Challenge is not a contest, but simply a method of inspiring and supporting participants in their life success. It is infinitely clear that every participant is a winner. These are the people with the guts to publicly go on record as to what success they are claiming for themselves, their dreams and their lives. As every Total Life Success visitor can attest to the results of the 21-Day Challenge are truly inspirational.
Every participant who completed their Challenge by posting 15 out of the 21 days of the Challenge and by posting a final Challenge report to the Success receives a certificate of completion and a $25 Total Life Success gift certificate. Participants who partnered with other entrants and completed their Challenge receive a $100 gift certificate!
As an additional way of recognizing participants, Total Life Success selects certain individuals to receive the Best of Success Award recognizing exceptional effort in that participant’s effort towards success.
Participants are selected for Best of Success Awards based on the following criteria: the degree of difficulty of the goals as measured by that individual’s current life circumstances (not everyone starts in the same place in life), how much progress that person achieved towards their desired outcome, what lessons of success that person learned for themselves and illustrated with their effort, the inspriationality of their efforts; and how skillfully the final essay conveys those factors.
Judges select one grand Total Life Success “Best of Success” and up to five life area “Best of Success” Award recipients, one for each life area with a participant who completes the 21-Day Challenge.
The Grand “Best of Success” Award recipient receives: One month of free coaching, by premier Success Coach Mark Farmer An iClick 1.3 megapixal digital camera Reimbursement of any purchases made from Total Life Success in the last 6 months including coaching, workbooks, or Success Solution products A Free copy of Total Life Success’ newest E-book, Inspirational Success Free Self-Care products by Exotic Hawaii Bath & Body, and A certificate awarding them the title of the Total Life Success Award!
Each Life Area “Best of Success” Award Recipients receives: Reimbursement of any purchases made from Total Life Success in the last 6 months, A free copy of Total Life Success’ newest E-book, Inspirational Success, and A Certificate naming them the Total Life Success Award recipient for their life area.
Participants vying for an Award needed to post 15 out of the 21 days of the Challenge, including a final Challenge report to the Success Forum. Because no participants completed the requirements for Awards in the following areas: Body, Spirit, Relationships, and Wealth, awards for those life areas were not made.
Because of the incredible participation in this 21-Day Challenge the process for selecting Award recipients was excruciatingly difficult. There was such a level of effort that nearly every judge commented that the ending Award suggestions were nearly a draw. In the end the final Awards are as follows:
Life Area “Best of Success” Awards
In the Life Success category of “Mind Best of Success” is Fabman with his mind-blowing Challenge “Fabman’s 21 Day Challenge.” Total Life Success judges were blown away by the incredible effort, persistence and spirit shown by Fabman in reaching for and achieving 21 quality articles of over 500 words in length in 21 days. Fabman’s efforts required an incredible illustration of the principles of success including organization to find the time to write, creativity to write original articles, mental focus and concentration in initiating and completing each article and a myriad of other talents, skills and sheer effort.
Fabman not only set a new level in Challenge effort, he demolished the previous level of Challenge goal setting. Total Life Success takes great pleasure in presenting Fabman with a well-deserved Award for “Mind Best of Success”!
The Grand “Best of Success” Award
And the grand January 2003, Total Life Success 21-Day Challenge Award goes to… Corbob!
In her incredibly inspiring thread “My Goal“, Corbob detailed her goal from her initial desire to cut down in her eating and exercise for 10 minutes a day to her final progress in exercising for periods of up to 55 minutes and dropping 8 pounds. More importantly, Corbob’s thread details her journey to discovering a strength and a persistence within herself that she did not realize she possessed.
Through a sports injury, caring for a husband and kids, attending college, being snowed in, 4 hour nights of sleep, mental barriers and a host of other “reasons” to give up, Corbob found a way over, around or through any obstacle in her way. Some day’s found Corbob edging her workouts in between loads of laundry or for a few minutes in between baking for her family. But through the course of the Challenge, Corbob slowly strengthened her resolve to reach the goal she set 21 days prior. With an incredible spirit of persistence Corbob commented, “Problems in life are not STOP signs. They are light posts!”
Total Life Success takes great pleasure in awarding Corbob the title of “Best of Success” for the January 2003, Total Life Success Challenge!
Thank you to Corbob, Fabman, and all of the Challenge participants for demonstrating to all of us the level of commitment, persistence and effort it truly takes to succeed in our dreams. From Total Life Success and the viewers of TLS, congratulations to all of the participants of the January 2003, Total Life Success 21-Day Challenge!
Mark Farmer is the author of several books on life success, including ‘Goal Setting Success’. He is the founder of http://www.TotalLifeSuccess.com. Subscribe to his powerful, life-changing newsletter with original, cutting-edge “how-to succeed” tips at subscribe@totallifesuccess.com.
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