The concept: Think of something you’ve always wanted to do…and try it.
Who: Our teams.
What: 30 Day Challenge
When: A thirty day period during our seasons.
How: We’ll talk about that in a moment.
What if we created a shared experience for our teams that would unite and bond them for the short term…and ideally, long term? That’s what the thirty day challenges could be for our teams! I’ve heard of teams giving up fast food for the season, I’ve heard of departments giving up complaining…all sorts of stuff. The idea is we can do anything for thirty days. Also, you can add or subtract activities, it doesn’t always have to be giving something up.
In a short TEDtalk (under four minutes!), Matt Cutts challenges his listeners to Try Something New For 30 Days. He was speaking of challenges for individuals, but I think this would be cool to do with our teams.
Brainstorming ideas (finish all ideas with “for 30 days”)
- Give up fast food.
- Study nights together.
- Partner up and say something positive to your partner.
- Partner up and give partner small gift.
- Give up complaining.
- Stop cussing.
- Stop negative attitudes.
- Partner up and send each other positive texts or FB messages.
- Eat dinner together.
- Partner up and share a song you like.
- Give up sugar.
- Eat a vegetable at every meal.
- Tell coach how awesome she is. (Just kidding!)
The beauty of this is that it can be student led. They could brainstorm the ideas and even have more than one challenge per season. They’d police themselves and be on the honor system, so the coaches wouldn’t have to worry about keeping track of everything. Perhaps there can even be some sort of celebratory “yay, we did it!” event at the end of the thirty days.
In the video, Cutts talks about some of the benefits of his previous challenges: his confidence grew, time became more memorable, he learned that small changes are more sustainable. I’d add that, for teams, we’ll grow together through our shared experiences. And that’ll create amazing team chemistry!
I’ve not tried this with any of my teams before, but I’m willing to give it a whirl to see how it turns out. How about you?
