Be a Better Me in 30 Days (30BBM), Aug 2011 Run [Sign Ups CLOSED]

This is the announcement post for Be a Better Me in 30 Days (30BBM) held in Aug 2011. Get the official Be a Better Me in 30 Days Course and work on being the highest version of you in the next 30 days!

Are you someone who’s passionate about growth? About becoming a better person? About achieving your ideal self?

If so, you HAVE to join the upcoming challenge at PE! Come 1st August 2011, I’ll be kicking off an all new “Be a Better Me in 30 Days” August Challenge, where all of us will work together to become a better person. And I hereby invite ALL OF YOU to join in! :D

Introducing: “Be a Better Me in 30 Days” August Challenge!

Personal Excellence (Personal Excellence Blog, for those who are new here) has been known for its life changing challenges. Since Sep ’10, I’ve been conducting various challenges of different themes, including the following:

1. Living a Better Life (30DLBL, Live a Better Life in 30 Days – Sep 2010, Dec 2010, Apr 2011)
2. Living a Healthier Life (21DHL, 21 Days to Live a Healthier Life – Jan 2011)
3. Building a Successful Blog (BIB, Blogging Intensive Bootcamp – Mar-Apr 2011)
4. Making More Money (MDC, Million Dollar Challenge – Mar-May 2011)

To date, each challenge has gathered hundreds to thousands of participants. Lives were changed. Tears were shed. Minds were opened. Potential was unleashed. New friendships were forged. Things would never be the same again.

Riding on true Personal Excellence tradition, I thought it’s time to start a new challenge so we can band as a community again and grow together. The last challenge we had was MDC which ended in mid-May, so it’s already been 2 months since we had any community-level activity.

For the upcoming challenge, I decided it’s time to do something new. Instead of working on our life, health or career/business (money), we’ll work on becoming a better us, via “Be a Better Me in 30 Days” August Challenge! (30BBM)

What is 30BBM About?

30BBM is an all-new challenge where we’ll be working on ourselves, our characters, our personalities – thereby creating a better us at the end of the 30 days.

So what exactly does it mean to “Be a Better Me“? It means…

• To become a better person – One that we will be proud of. If I were to ask you to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, what score would you give yourself? Would you rate it a 10? Why/Why not? No matter how good we are, there is always room to be a better person. Through 30BBM, we will do exactly that – be a better person.
  • Weed out the traits we do not like. Some of us may often complain about traits we’re not proud of. For example, procrastination. Laziness. Pessimism. Clumsiness. Carelessness. Forgetfulness. Tardiness. Impatience. Low self-confidence. Abrasiveness. Obsessiveness. Complaining. Self-victimizing. Etc. Does any of these sound familiar to you? During 30BBM, we will explore our negative traits and work to remove them.
  • Build new, desired traits. What traits do you want to cultivate? Compassion? Assertiveness? Responsibility? Resilience? Courage? Self-Belief? Sharpness? Wisdom? Wittiness? Femininity? Masculinity? Diligence? Through 30BBM, we’ll cultivate our ideal traits.
• To develop our character. All of us develop a certain character based on our upbringing. When we don’t grow, don’t challenge ourselves, don’t explore new grounds, our character will atrophy into nothing. We become just another person in the crowd who goes with the flow, who sways with public opinion, who has no say/idea of his/her own. It is by taking on the right experiences and consciously growing where we build our character. By taking on 30BBM, you create the opportunity to develop your character in just 1 month, compared to if you don’t participate.
• To (re-)discover ourselves. (Re-)Discovering who we are, on a whole new level. Connecting with our inner self. Knowing why we behave the way we do. Understanding the motivations behind our actions. Such self-reflection is needed for us to improve and become better. Many of the tasks in 30BBM will get us to reflect and rediscover ourselves.
• To cultivate universal values. No matter who we are, there are universal values that connect us as humans. These values include Compassion, Gratitude, Love, Kindness, Truth, Authenticity, Generosity, Positivity, Growth, and more. Through the 30BBM tasks, we will reacquaint with these values and cultivate them in us.

Outline For What’s Ahead in August

30BBM will run for the entire month of August 2011. Get ready to set aside August as the month to “be a better me“! :)

1. There will be 30 tasks for 30 days. Aug 1st will be Day 1, Aug 2nd will be Day 2, and so on.
2. The entire challenge will take place here, at Personal Excellence (the site you’re reading now).
3. Starting from Aug 1 (Day 1), I’ll kick off the challenge at the blog. A new task will be posted each day, for 30 days.
   • The task will include (a) A brief write-up (b) Instructions on what you have to do for the day. This task will be related to becoming a better person. It will take roughly 30min-1 hour to complete, depending on how long you need.
   • You will have the whole day to do the task.
   • Report back with your results at the end of the day via replying in the comments box for the day’s task.
4. The challenge ends on Aug 30, after 30 days’ worth of tasks.
5. On Aug 31, we’ll wrap up the challenge with a conclusion and feedback session.

6 Tips on How to Get the Best Out of 30BBM

1. Schedule an hour a day. Go set aside an hour out of your daily schedule in August for 30BBM now. Protect this hour and don’t let other activities eat into this period. August is *the* month to be a better YOU – it’s either you do it now or never. Reserve this sacred hour each day to cultivate a better character.
2. Do the task during the day itself. Don’t delay, don’t postpone, don’t push back, don’t give yourself excuses. The tasks are all meant to be completed within 30 minutes to an hour. Either you do it on the day or you’re never going to get to it, ever. In past challenges, participants who skip 1-2 days usually never end up catching up, because the tasks snowball and they give up after that – sadly. 30BBM has already been broken up into 30, digestible tasks for your easy participation. Just stick to the schedule of 1 task a day and you’ll do very well.
3. Focus on getting started. If you really don’t have time, get started, and work from there. Make it a working draft if you have to. It’s not about completion, but about the journey. None of the challenges at Personal Excellence has ever been about “completion”. There’s no “completion” in the journey of growth – it’s about doing and being.
4. Share your results. Don’t just do the challenge by yourself, in your own space. You may get some insights this way, but nothing beats openly sharing what you’ve done, what you’ve experienced, and you’ve learned. I’m providing this platform to you, for free, so this is your chance to make use of it and share your results openly. It is through sharing where you learn more. If you have privacy concerns, just use an alias / false name for the challenge. I don’t care – it doesn’t matter at all to me. Don’t let your ego / desire for privacy prevent you from learning. Remember, this is a challenge to be a better you, so if you have issues with being outspoken/vocal, breaking out of your comfort zone to share is the first step. I just want you to be here to learn and grow.
5. Be a part of the community. This means (a) Sharing your results openly (b) Interacting with the participants. In all past challenges, the participants who gained the most have always been the ones who participate actively and be part of the community. It has always been this way; no exceptions. The more you engage, the more you learn.
6. Get a friend or family member to do it with you. If you’re able to do this, you’ll be able to get even more out of the challenge! Doing this with someone in real life, who can spur you on and hold you accountable, and whom you can cross-share results with, will heighten the experience even more with you. Can you think of any friend(s) or family members you can do this with? A partner perhaps? Your sister or brother? Your dad or mom? Your best friend? An acquaintance? A new colleague who just joined the team? Rope them all in!

How to Sign Up: 3 Simple Steps

Okay, now the moment of truth. All this sounds really amazing… so how much does it cost?

Guess what – it costs absolutely free! That’s right – You don’t have to pay a single cent.

I’m setting 30BBM as a free online course for all readers of Personal Excellence (meaning, YOU!), because I want to thank you for being a part of my growth journey and for being a part of the amazing blog community. Thank you for being my angelsand for being my wings in life – You spur me on to be better and to create more so that all of us can grow together!

(For those who want to support my work, you can get my products, for example the Live a Better Life in 30 Days program.)

Here are the 3 steps you’ve to officially sign up now:

1. Sign up for the Personal Excellence newsletter and RSS Feed now. So you will receive all the tasks for the challenge – The daily tasks will be delivered to your inbox every day as they are posted.
2. Post a comment here with your intention to sign up. (Make sure your email is the same as the one you used to sign up for the Personal Excellence newsletter in #1)
3. Share the challenge on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus so others can know about the challenge too! There are the convenient social media share buttons below you can use for this purpose.

Once you do the 3 steps above, I’ll update the participants list with your name within 24 hours!

How to Stay Connected

This is not compulsory, but staying connected with the community will enhance your experience of the challenge. Many readers are a part of my social media pages, where I post latest updates on my life, including real time updates about challenges and more.

1. If you have Facebook: Join my Facebook page (over 1,500 readers to date!!)
2. If you have Twitter: Follow me on Twitter @celestinechua. Use #30BBM in your tweets so other participants who look up the hashtag can see your tweets too.
3. Blog comments: This is where all the discussion and sharing on the challenge will take place. Bookmark Personal Excellence and check by the comments section of the daily posts. Post as many replies as you want; ask questions; share your thoughts; add your 2 cents to others’ comments!

Spread the Word to Everyone!

The best way to make this challenge a real success is to get as many people on board as possible. This isn’t just a “me” challenge (even though the challenge is “Be a Better Me”); this is a “us” challenge. When we have more people doing the tasks with us, we generate more positive energy, we gain momentum, and all of us benefit together. We get more people sharing their results, their insights, and we learn so much more in the process.

Hence, I need your help to share this to as many people as you can. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Email, etc (all share buttons can be found at the end of the article, if you’re reading this at the blog and not your email reader). Get all your friends, family and acquaintances to join. The more people who sign up, the more powerful this experience is going to be!

Ready to Be a Better You in the Next 30 Days?

That’s about it for now! Go ahead and sign up now, then wait for Day 1’s task on 1 August! :D Be sure to bookmark the site @ personalexcellence.co, subscribe to the RSS Feed, and schedule a daily event (in your August calendar) to check Personal Excellence for 30BBM tasks so you don’t forget about the challenge!

I’m traveling at the moment (in Germany, Einburg at the moment) and it’ll be interesting to see how I manage this in my schedule, but I’m sure it’s going to be a great fun! It’s all about being a better us. ;) See you guys on 1 August, and let us have a blast of a challenge ahead! :D

Update Mar 2015: 30BBM public run is over and I’ve since significantly upgraded it into a premium program of the same name: Be a Better Me in 30 Days. 30BBM Course comes with a 217-page comprehensive guidebook and a 107-page activity workbook with 30 breakthrough tasks to help you transform to a new and better you in just 30 days. Read more here: Be a Better Me in 30 Days