The 55-Day Challenge
March 10, 2026
1:10 pm
To celebrate my next trip around the sun on April 21st of this year, the 55th trip I will make, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could truly make changes that would impact my life.
Since today is almost over, March 10th, I will start tomorrow, March 11th, and the end date will be May 5th. Two significant dates, actually, March 11th is my youngest half-sister’s birthday, and May 5th is the day I started my military career.
Over the next 55 days, I will begin making changes in health, fitness, personal growth, mental well-being, finances, and relationships. To build better, sustainable habits.
There is no expected end goal, such as losing a certain amount of weight, gaining 10,000 followers on my new YouTube channel, or reading 50 books, but I hope to gain some insight, maybe some wisdom, in the process. After 55 years of living on this floating rock in the universe, peace of mind and calm are what I want the most and are priceless to me.
What precipitated all of this? Well, the initial thoughts came up after I chatted with my online person. The brief 10-minute texting chat after not talking for several days. It has been this way on and off for a few months now, and quite frankly, I’m tired of feeling like I am the only one pursuing this notion of a happy, long-lasting, transparent, and honest relationship. Either it will continue, or it will not. It has always been up to him; I made my choice a long time ago about being with him. I digress; this writing is about me.
I will need to set up a schedule, a plan, of what and how first. That’s me, the forever list and workflow chart maker. It is a hard habit to break, but it has always worked for me, too late to change now.
Then, after I make the plan, the next step is setting up a schedule. That may be the hardest part, but not really. I do not work a full-time job, I am retired, my medical and dental appointments are scheduled out for the remainder of the year, and the only other factor is my son’s work schedule.
I know how to make a plan that is flexible and easy to manage. I was always known for having that skill. It is what made me the best of the best and a subject matter expert in most of my job positions. My body may be getting older, but my mind is still young and full of ideas.
The other train of thought that came to mind after my chat was the phrase “Intentional Enjoyment”. I follow this account on YouTube called Rebel with a Plan, and her chat the other day was about why things we enjoy are always under scrutiny by others.
The idea that we should feel guilty for things that we enjoy because others do not like or understand them, as if we did not earn the right to be happy. I liked her phrase that we should not feel guilty about intentional enjoyment as long as it is not unlawful, unethical, or hurts others or ourselves. I made the comment that we are all responsible for our own happiness.
She also mentioned something about the 75 Day Hard Challenge and the 75 Day Soft Challenge. I had never heard of either one, and I looked over the requirements and rules of the challenges. I realized that I unknowingly already follow the soft challenge. The problem is consistency for me; I tend to fall off my plans when I lose focus.
That is what this 55-day challenge will be about: intentional enjoyment, pursuing the things that bring joy, happiness, calm, peace, and an overall sense of well-being. To bring back and remember the things that I always enjoyed but have fallen to the wayside because I did not want to be “judged” for them.
Yet I realized during that YouTube episode that there is no one judging me; I am my own worst critic and always have been. That is the biggest change I want to make. Less self-judgement and more pursuit of what makes me happy.
It was in that moment that I also remembered how long it took me to just feel comfortable in any space that I occupied. I would always feel like I was being watched and opinions were being formed about me as soon as I walked in.
It took a long time to see that no one really notices anyone else; it is all in our own minds because of self-doubt, self-consciousness, or fear. Now, I am mostly concerned with safety when I enter a place because of the current political climate in my country. Once again, I got slightly off topic. This is not the time for that discussion. It will come again, later. I have a lot of thoughts about that.
What will this 55-day challenge look like? Well, probably a lot of trial and error. Days of just not “feeling it” and wanting to give up, but that is the challenge: to keep checking off those boxes in the plan and marking the days on the calendar, to keep going.
To stay positive, motivated, and keep moving forward, the mantra I have espoused for more than 13 years now. The other phrase of “Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always” is the other idea I have written at the end of almost every blog article for the last 10 of those 13 years.
To achieve the latter, you have to believe in the first statement because it is all you. Only you can achieve what you want in life, and only you face the consequences. The one thing that I instilled in my kids as they grew up. The one thing it took over 30 years to realize was that it was all up to me; my own happiness is in my hands. It is not up to someone else to make me happy or to define what that happiness is. I do that for myself.
What are some of the things that I want to accomplish over the next 55 days? First and foremost, positive changes that relate to my health and well-being as I get older.
I have finally lost about 30 pounds over the last year and have kept it off. I still need to lose about another 20 more in order to keep my blood sugar and blood pressure down. I started taking a low-dose diabetic medication because I was stuck at around 130 to 140 fasting glucose levels in the mornings, despite the changes to my diet. It has brought me down to the 120’s after 30 days of usage.
If I lose another 10 to 20 pounds, it should bring me to a more manageable level, and I can be taken off the medication. This will also affect my blood pressure, which has been up and down, not dangerously high but enough of a concern to change my diet, again.
While making healthier food choices is great, exercise and maintaining fitness are paramount for achieving overall health benefits. It does you no good if you are eating healthy but not getting up and moving around.
I have my treadmill, some flexibility exercises, and small hand weights that can keep me in shape. I also found out that the VA offers both yoga and Tai Chi classes during the week. I want to also include walking outside, possibly a walking trail, since I was told no more running.
I have some bulging discs in my neck per the last MRI, which is being monitored, and I was told there were to be no more high-intensity workouts, such as running, Zumba, or weight lifting. I cannot lift weights as it is, because of my arm, and I am still stuck at only being able to lift to 5 lbs., and I still have random tremors.
I miss being able to lift 50 pounds with no problem and do 100-pound deadlifts to an overhead press; that’s the weight that I had finally reached when I was doing the Strong lifts 5×5 program. It made me feel strong. Then life happened, I stopped working out, and I got injured later on.
Now, more flexibility and maintaining healthy joints for stability are the focus.
I know the morning stretching is helping with the shoulder and hand stiffness, and it is also lessening some of the pain. The end goal is not to be on any medication, including ibuprofen for pain.
I was finally assigned, post-surgery, to an OB/Gyn at the end of last year for the menopause symptoms. The hormone replacement therapy has made a world of difference in how I feel. The hot flashes, sleep interruptions, and irritability have lessened, but the depression and anxiety are still there, just not as intense.
Another task to accomplish in the next 55 days is personal growth in the form of reading, learning, and creating more with less doom scrolling.
This morning, I momentarily considered putting all my social media accounts on a temporary deactivation, but then remembered that almost all of my creative projects are posted on my accounts.
I also thought about including learning languages, but that requires a long-term commitment that is more than 55 days. I could get started on them during the same time period, but time is the factor that has to be considered in all of this.
The last thing is the overall balance within my household. I realized that since my injury and recovery, I have let my normal routines go. I have relied way too much on my son for things like keeping the house clean and tidy, taking care of the pets, and allowing too much of our financial resources to go towards “convenience”.
I need to reestablish a daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning schedule to maintain the household. This prevents both wasted time and resources. Along with the household chores is cooking meals. We have gone from cooked meals 4 to 5 days a week to about 3 times a week. That is a lot of wasted finances towards somewhat unhealthy eating habits, which affects our overall health.
I used to enjoy cooking, but once I got divorced and the kids grew up, there was not much of a need for me to cook meals just for myself. Even if it is just making sure dinner is cooked at least 4 days during the week is a better start than restaurants or quick, easy meals from the grocery store. I used to make meal plans for two weeks at a time, and my grocery budget was based on this, which saved us more overall.
Those are just some of the ideas I have for this 55-day challenge.
Small, simple moves that could have a big impact on my life, my health, and my well-being.
Will I accomplish everything that I set out to do? Probably, I am being realistic about my limitations. I know there will be days that I nap too much because I didn’t sleep well. There will also be days when I am just not in a great mood, and everything seems too loud. Then there will be days when there are too many appointments or schedule changes to be met in a week, and some things will have to be put to the side. This will inevitably affect my activity levels. Life is not perfect; it’s hectic sometimes, and we manage the best we can.
If you have made it this far into this reading, thank you.
Thank you for stopping by and supporting my blog.
Have a fabulous week!
Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!
Suzanne
love to bake 