Pre-Challege Prep | Your Strategy to Take on the 62-Day Challenge
Welcome to the 100x Life podcast where we activate people who desire to live the words of Jesus and experience the abundant Hey. Dropping a podcast again to prepare for the 62 day challenge if that's where you're at. You wanna prepare for the 60 2 day challenge. This is a good place to be. We are going to be starting the challenge January 2nd.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening to this after January 2, 2025, it's okay. It was just rinse and repeat. But, January 2nd is where we're starting the challenge. And, last time I talked about specifically what is the challenge. And one of the things I talked about was that the challenge is actually this great mix of physicality, doing workouts, and then also spirituality.
Speaker 1:And the important point there, just as a refresher, is that we need to say no to the body and well, that's the physical because when we're doing the physical, the body's gonna say, no. I don't wanna do it. And that's gonna give us the power when our mind takes authority over our body. It's gonna be able to hand that over to the to the spirit to lead. And that's so that's why we do them together because we want to strengthen the muscle, the faith muscle of obedience.
Speaker 1:And the faith muscle of obedience is strengthened when we are saying actively saying having opportunities to say no to the body and what the body wants to do. In other words, you don't have to wait for, like, a potential sin issue to strengthen an anti sin muscle. No. All you have to do is say to the body, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna drink coffee, or I'm not gonna do this for a little bit. And then the body screams and says, no.
Speaker 1:I want that stuff. And then you say the mind says, no. Well, you're gonna have to delay gratification. You're gonna have to hit the pause button, and then that builds the faith muscle of following Jesus. So that's what we talked about in, why the 62 day challenge.
Speaker 1:Let's talk now about how do you prepare for it. How do you prepare for it? Because if you have the PDF, you can look at the you can print it out, and it'll give you the check boxes for all the things that we're going through. So let's talk about it. So let's let's talk first about the the the 45 minute workouts.
Speaker 1:And we got 2 of them in there. Oh my gosh. Rob, why are you asking us to do 2 45 minute workouts, 1 outside? And this is kind of a nod to 75 hard, which is where that came from. And that is is that we need to do hard things, difficult things if the mind is gonna get the opportunity to say no when the body screams.
Speaker 1:So the hard things are on purpose. Now you can, depending upon who you are, like some of you are athletes and maybe you're an athlete. And, yeah, I'm gonna do I'm gonna be doing some cardio. I'm gonna be getting in the gym. Or you could be more on the couch potato side where, hey.
Speaker 1:I've just you know, any workout, is better than what I'm doing now. So you can you can moderate what you're doing. The only rule is that you do it 45 minutes and one outside. So for instance, for the person who's just getting into the even a habit of of exercise, a walk, and I'm a say a brisk walk is is perhaps for you gonna be awesome walking for 45 minutes, maybe in the morning, maybe 45 minutes in the evening. I would even recommend doing that when the sun's coming up.
Speaker 1:When the sun's going down, those are 2 precious times to be outside and be in God's glory. So that might be what you do, and then I would just encourage you if you're gonna be walking your 45 minutes that you walk fast enough that it's hard for you to talk. So if you were with a partner and you're together and you're walking, you can talk, you can communicate, but it is a little bit of a struggle. In other words, you might sound breakfast. You might sound like you're, you know, you wouldn't be good on the phone that way.
Speaker 1:So so make sure you're doing that because that means you're gonna be in the zone 2 heart rate. And the zone when you're in the zone 2 heart rate, good things happen to the heart. Good things happen in the mind. It burns the right amount of energies and calories. It it can promote a a positive outlook, positive well-being, so it can affect possibly affect your psyche.
Speaker 1:So zone 2 is definitely a good workout to do. Like, so if you're a walker, if that's what you're gonna do with the 40 fives. If you're like me, not saying I'm an athlete, but I'm going pretty hard. I'm doing the first 45 minutes generally is gonna be cardio, so that could be for me a run. Sometimes it's, you know, for 45 minutes, I could pretty much do 4, almost 5 miles in 45 minutes.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be it's gonna be a spin. I love to get on the spin bike and do a 45 minute class, or just riding your bike. I do a 1 mountain bike, a week, and that's about a that's about an hour. It's about 50 minutes, so it's perfect for the 45 minutes. You might do, get on the rowing machine.
Speaker 1:You might do that. The stair climber. There are, you know, the orbiter or whatever they call that thing in the gym. You know, there's all these opportunities for you to do cardio, and you can do them at your pace. Like, you could run at your pace.
Speaker 1:Just make sure that you're pushing the body. And then, for me, my second 45 minute workout is in the gym doing weights. So I I rotate between 3 muscle groups, and then I do that twice a week and then rest on Sundays. And so remember, we're resting on Sundays, so you know 45 minute workouts on Sundays. But you're gonna have to plan because if you're not accustomed to working out right now, if you don't actually put those in your calendar, they just aren't gonna happen.
Speaker 1:You really have to be strategic about when you're gonna do the 45 minutes and it for twice a day. So and that really gets important, like, when you start traveling, you know, I'll be on I'll be on a couple airplanes during the challenge. And then I need to figure out, okay, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna do a 45 minute work walk in the airport. Am I gonna get up a little earlier at my hotel and workout?
Speaker 1:You know, you got to continually plan and be ready for how am I gonna get these 2 45 minute workouts in. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about clean eating. So in the clean eating, we're gonna say no to alcohol. If it's if if alcohol is something you're participating in, like, daily or every other day or maybe 3 times a week, the bottom line is your body is going to revolt when you say no.
Speaker 1:This is common too at parties or you're having guests over. You know, it's very common in America. We get together for drinks. There's a little bit of a high that happens when you have your just your first drink. I'm not talking about being drunk, but the reason why alcohol is is so attractive to the brain is what happens is it it gives us a little high when the within the first 15 minutes or half an hour drinking, and that's what the brain or the body is saying.
Speaker 1:I love that. I want that. So you're gonna be saying no to that. That's gonna strengthen your faith muscle, your obedience, your Jesus following muscle, and you might have to do that at a party. So if you're at a party, or you're at something where people are drinking, what I do to to keep my mind off of it is and I don't have this problem anymore because I I I drink very, very little at this point, is I just get a club soda and a line.
Speaker 1:Club soda and a line. In fact, I'm constantly ordering club soda and a line, if it has the same feeling like I'm drinking a cocktail, but it is not doesn't have the alcohol. So that's a that's a quick, tip that you could probably try. And then we're also we're also saying no to added sugar. So this one is gonna be, I think, a little bit more.
Speaker 1:If you haven't done this before, a little bit more illuminating, you're gonna be surprised to find out. So much of American foods have added sugar. So here's the rules on the challenge. You're looking at the back of the package. There's a line that said add add says added sugar.
Speaker 1:If it says 0 percentage, you're good. If it's anything above 0, that's off limits. That's how you gauge it. And so you might need to go through your counter, maybe not throw it away through your cupboard, through your wherever you keep all your foods, and maybe throw the ones that have added sugar in in a box if you're gonna keep them. My recommendation is just get rid of them and never buy it again because added sugar is so bad for the body.
Speaker 1:But the point is we're gonna the body's gonna revolt because it doesn't have sugar. It is going to revolt. And so we're gonna get the opportunity to get in the gym, flex the faith following muscle, the obedience following muscle. And and that's what's so cool about this program is you're gonna get a a spiritual workout by telling your body what it will and will not do. So you might with alcohol also get, all the alcohol that you have, kinda get it out of the house so it's out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1:That'll be helpful. And then we're gonna we're gonna be focusing on, clean eating, which is we're gonna try to do fruits and vegetables. So 4 4 servings of fruits or vegetables, you know, that gets pretty easy. And and and a fruit, although it has sugar in it, it doesn't have added sugar in it. So that one is completely fair game.
Speaker 1:You can take sugar in the form of whole foods. In other words, it's not condensed, and and that's what happens in in our other foods that have added added sugar. It's not a whole food. So, you know, an apple is one serving. You can do, you could do, like, a a smoothie drink with a banana.
Speaker 1:I like mixing, bananas and blueberries. It's kinda something I really like to do with little peanut butter. It tastes really good. And make sure your peanut butter doesn't have sugar in it. And then you can try different things like salad.
Speaker 1:A salad is a great way to go because you can mix a bunch of vegetables in a salad. So that's a really good one to to to multiply what you get. I like avocado in the morning, which is great. Tomatoes, there's all sorts of fruits and veggies you could do, but you're gonna need to work at it, and you're going to need to be in the market more often than usual because those things tend to go bad because they're whole foods. They don't have the preservatives that are bad for us.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna need to refresh our supply to stay clean eating. Okay. So we got the 2 45 minute workouts. No alcohol, no added sugar. We got the 4 servings, and then 4 servings of veggies and fruits, and then finally, water.
Speaker 1:100 ounces of water. Okay. So how do I do that, and why is that important? Well, you're gonna be working out more. You're gonna be sweating more.
Speaker 1:We need to make sure we get the water in there. So some some people who do the challenge do a 120. I recommend a 100 for starters. It's important to try to put as much water in your system in the morning as you can, particularly if you're a coffee drinker. Try to drink a lot of water before your first cup or your second cup.
Speaker 1:However many cups you drink, try to do water in between. That's gonna slow your coffee drinking down, which is great. You'll enjoy it more because you're gonna be drinking coffee because of the taste, versus the thirst. So that's a really, really good thing. And then get a water bottle.
Speaker 1:You know, this is my water bottle. This is what I use. This one is, 38 ounces. If you get a 33 ounce bottle, which is the Nalgene bottles, the plastic ones, an Nalgene bottle, 33 ounces, then you're gonna do you're gonna fill it a little bit higher than 33 ounces, and you're gonna do 3 of those a day. So when I first did this, I had a grease marker, and I just would I would after I got done with 1, I go, okay.
Speaker 1:1, got done with 2, then 3, then erased it for the next day. It's a good way to keep track, but it's an incredible habit to just drink. Your heart works better. Your kidneys function better. Water is truly the oil of the machine.
Speaker 1:If your body is a machine, it's truly the oil. It makes everything work better. So make sure you do that. Okay. So let me tell you about the mindset prep.
Speaker 1:So the first six chapters of a 100 x life are completely designed to help you set your mind and get focused on Jesus's process of transformation to really understand the way Jesus expects us to transform our minds. So it's it's really preparatory. It's a preparatory work, those 6 chapters. Now we're gonna be tracking with them on day on January 2nd. We're gonna we're gonna go through the mindset perhaps, for 6 days in a row.
Speaker 1:But here's my recommendation. Get in get into it now and start reading now because the bottom line is those chapters are longer. They're they're longer than the kind of the 1 page 1 or 2 page words of Jesus with journal prompts. They're a little bit more explanation on on what is Jesus' process of transformation. It's really important for you to understand because as you go through the challenge, you're gonna really, transform the way you perceive, work or being tested in a thing, you're gonna start to see life as more of a gymnasium experience or, trials as things that are gonna grow me, and make me more of who Jesus wants me to be instead of trying to run from trial.
Speaker 1:So it's gonna be a really transformative, but understanding Jesus' bread for transformation is critical. So get a jump on them. I would just start cracking the book right now. They they also have journal prompts, but get a head start on that. That'll be helpful.
Speaker 1:And then this journaling, I wanna talk a little bit about the journaling because I am going to be challenging you in this journaling. Some of you are not journalers. I get it. I know lots of them. You don't you're not, don't set the expectation that you've gotta journal, you know, 3 or 4 pages.
Speaker 1:No. You're gonna journal you're gonna journal if you're not a journaler, you might jar journal a paragraph. You might you might do 2 paragraphs, but it is the act of writing and thinking that helps us reprogram the brain. So it's doing that simultaneously where we're writing our answers, and then we're re rereading them. And that's that's the the mind trans that's a much more effective way to transform the mind.
Speaker 1:So the journaling is really vital. You can get your own journal. I, you know, I I like this type of journal that's, you know, lined leather bound. I like that. You can buy you can buy the 100 x live journal, which, looks like this.
Speaker 1:This is on Amazon. So 100 x live daily practice. What's cool about this is this has the, this has the words of Jesus prompts and your rating for where you're at in that word, and then it gives you space to journal. So that's one way to do it. There's no perfect way to do it.
Speaker 1:You know, it's really a matter of preference and what you like. Here's the hardest part, and here's the thing that I think is gonna give you the most transformation, and that is journaling, transformation, and that is journaling from God. In other words, what I'm gonna be asking you to do is I'm gonna ask you to choose or I'm gonna tell you, ask holy spirit or ask Jesus or ask the father about a question. And let me tell you, they they he loves questions. They love questions, and they love to answer questions.
Speaker 1:And and so you're gonna be asking them questions, and then you're gonna be journaling their answers. Now a lot of people are gonna be like, hold on, Rob. I'm not gonna be talking for God, and I get it. I totally get it. But here's the deal.
Speaker 1:You are you are Jesus' sheep. You are his disciple. And Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, which means you hear his voice. Most of us don't hear the audible, sound of God we hear in our imaginations. Our imagination space is where we're hearing various competing voices, and God is one of them.
Speaker 1:And so what I'm asking to do is to practice listening. You're you're gonna be exercising the practice of listening to God, and that is your right to hear his voice. Jeremiah, 31 says that that, no in the new covenant, no longer will, a man teach his neighbor, but everyone will be taught directly from God. Your you have a right and a privilege of being taught directly by God. Doesn't mean we don't listen to the pastor.
Speaker 1:Of course, we do. Doesn't mean we don't listen to other wise spiritual voices in our life. Of course, we do. But don't miss your opportunity to be taught by God, and this is a great way to get there. So you're gonna be I've got journal prompts, you know, ask holy spirit this, ask Jesus this, and then I'm writing the answer.
Speaker 1:Now look. You're not gonna write a 100% accurate for God. That is not the expectation, and don't think that you will. But here's where you're gonna be maybe a little shocked, and I hope surprised, is that a very high percentage of what you write, you will know when you reread it, that it is in fact a message to you. And you can tell you're we judge we judge truth with our spirit, and we kinda know if we're paying attention.
Speaker 1:You you like, you can't even the Bible says you can't even read the Bible without holy spirit helping you see the revelation in its pages. And so holy spirit's gonna be guiding you. How holy spirit's response one of his jobs is to teach you all things according to Jesus. That's in John, 14. So he's gonna be teaching you all things, and now you're gonna be actually documenting that.
Speaker 1:And what you could do if if to make it safe for you is you could go with a highlighter or a pen and just cross out the things that you don't think are from you the things that you think are from you, and then highlight the things that you think are in fact from God and think important messages to you. The other thing I'll tell you is that when you hear God's voice, whether that's in your imagination or whatnot on the pages, it's always laced with love. In other words, you feel his presence and and his presence is laced. It's filled with love. And so the exchange in the hearing, from what I've experienced in talking with others, it always has this feeling of love that love can move us to joy and laughter.
Speaker 1:It can move us to tears. It can it can move us to, just feeling excited, but you will feel and know and understand when your words are true and written from one member of the trinity. Why do I ask you to write from one member of the trinity? This is a this is something that I've just picked up on that works. I've worked with many, many people and trying to get them to hear hear God's voice the way they hear with the right they are.
Speaker 1:And what I have found is if you if you ask them to hear from God, it's harder than if I say, what is holy spirit saying? Or what is Jesus? Or what is the father saying? And I don't know what it is about that, but here's what I think. I think because you're hearing in your imagination when you can picture you you know, we've all got some kind of picture whether it's accurate or not.
Speaker 1:We got a picture of what Jesus looks like, the father looks like, or we're we can we can actually build an imagination on that. And then when we think, okay. What are you saying to me in response to this question? That will focus our listening skills. It will help us hear more clearly.
Speaker 1:It'll help us, learn the practice of listening to God faster. So just take my word for it. I've done it before with many, many people. It seems to work. Hope it works for you, and I hope you don't miss out on the kind of the creme de la creme.
Speaker 1:The prize of the high the 62 day challenge is hearing from God, hearing him teach you about, his words, Jesus specifically teaching you about his words. It is going to be phenomenal. Okay. So, you know, that is how to prepare. You do have to do a little planning.
Speaker 1:Make sure that you got the workouts in your schedule. Make sure that your pantry or your cupboard doesn't have the alcohol in it. Is they added sugar removed. Make sure you got a water bottle. Make sure you've got a strategy for hitting the grocery store more regularly to get those fruits and veggies in.
Speaker 1:And then what is your time going to be for journaling? Usually, that's, important to just have that, have that in a set time. For me, it's always the morning with a cup of coffee. I love coffee. I love I love to picture Jesus and I sitting and having coffee together.
Speaker 1:I think that that's amazing. Really helps me engage when I'm doing that. So maybe it's the morning for you. Maybe it's the evening for you. Okay.
Speaker 1:So the final thing that I wanna tell you about is the thankfulness meditation. Okay. The thankfulness meditation. I I don't know how how I kinda got into this, but it's something that that I started doing myself. And I gotta tell you, it has huge ramifications for your attitude.
Speaker 1:It has huge ramifications for, your ability to sleep. And then, just like David says that, you know, God taught me things all night long, I think and that's true. I think that it guides how you sleep and think. Your your mind is actually more active when it's asleep than when you're awake, which is hard to believe. And your mind, the daytime process is a gathering, and the nighttime process is a sorting thinking.
Speaker 1:You're sorting the things you've gathered, get sorted in the evening. If you do this thankfulness meditation, you're gonna set yourself up for amazing sorting of the information. It'll go well. It'll go really well. So here's here's what you do.
Speaker 1:Okay? So you you're you're ready for bed. You know, maybe it's you and your spouse. We're turning off the lights. Turn off the lights.
Speaker 1:Your head's on the pillow. You know, your prostate your prostrate, you're laying flat. And then, you know and, usually, I stay on my back for this, but you can be you could be on your side, and here's what you do. I want you to go back to this morning, the the this the day that you're going to sleep on, go back to that morning and walk through the day as in detail as you can. And then every step of the way be thanking God for the privilege of talking to this person or the the amazing thing that you saw in nature or this song that you heard that lit up your heart or you got you really heard the voice of God in one of your journaling, and you're just so thankful for it.
Speaker 1:You're going back and you're remembering every single thing that happened in detail in order in that day, and you're thanking God or one member of the trinity, thanking them for that experience. Now it might be slow at first because, gratitude is, it is cultivated and it need we gotta get good at gratitude. And the better you get at gratitude, the the more fear dissipates from your life. It's it's like it's like the anti fear strategy is to be grateful, for things that have happened in the past that are so precious. So you're gonna go through this.
Speaker 1:You're gonna go through the the the thankfulness meditation. And at some point, you're likely just gonna fall asleep. You know, it's it's it's very difficult for me to make it past lunch in my mind review of the day and my thankfulness. But let me tell you, I go to I go to sleep with a, just a an aura of joy, a smile on my face, and it's impacting everything. Don't miss the thankfulness meditation as a part of this challenge.
Speaker 1:It's gonna play into everything else you're doing, the physicality, the spirituality, the soul gym that you're gonna need as you learn the words of Jesus and practice them with your friends or your enemies. So don't miss the opportunity to do the thankfulness meditation. Okay. So that's it. Keep it keep it in planning.
Speaker 1:We're we're gonna be talking more about, prepping for the challenge. The next podcast that will drop will be about who do you wanna take on this journey? Because going on the journey together is really gonna be better because together, we can hold each other accountable, and then we can get encouraged by someone else who's going through something or has a regulatory experience with God on something, and it can super rub off on us. So, we'll look forward to that, and we'll see you next time. If you believe in the 100 x life movement, please follow and invite a friend by sharing this podcast.
Speaker 1:The 100 x life movement can also be found on Instagram and Facebook and also at a100xlife.com. The 100xlife podcast was produced by Jenna Dee of Jenna Dee Services with music by Ryan Ellis.
