When you want to make significant changes to your life, try out something new or change a bad habit, a thirty day trial is a great way to make behavioural changes naturally and instil them as part of your everyday life.

The best way to approach a thirty day trial is by focussing on a specific behaviour or habit that you want to change and making a firm commitment to alter it over thirty days. This may sound easy but thirty days really does mean thirty days ...The rule? One challenge per month...The punishment for not completing those thirty days? Going right back to day one and starting all over again, until thirty consecutive days have been completed and you hear a trumpet fanfare!

Habits are difficult things to alter especially when they become part of your life for many years. Half of you may want to make changes but the other half may still enjoy or rely upon that crutch you have leaned upon for so long. The only way to deal with such a challenge is to remember that the trial is for just thirty days. When you trivialise something, it loses its impact and raises the chances of success. When the thirtieth day has been reached, new changes are usually permanent and the chances of going back to your old ways are slim.

Have a think about any changes or habits you would like to work on. It could be anything, from getting up early every single day, sticking to a vegetarian or vegan diet, exercising for half an hour each morning, giving up television, paying someone a complement, learning a new skill...you decide.

The thirty day challenge is a great way to work on your own self discipline and try out something new. It provides a little taster of how these changes could improve your life and also gives you stronger mental stamina. Why not set up a thirty day challenge in the office? Working with colleagues who are also working on individual changes, could provide a great support network and increase your own personal chances of success as you lean on each other for encouragement.

The more thirty day trials you complete, the more you will witness positive changes which will benefit you both professionally and personally. If you go down the education route, you will learn new skills, if you take the healthy choice; you will boost your metabolism, if you go down a career path, you will increase your bank balance.

As we grow older, we latch on to bad habits which are of little benefit and are more of a hindrance. We become so embroiled in a hectic routine that we put off those changes we know we should make. As such, our will power becomes weak and we succumb to their influence. Smoking and drinking are vices which can easily take a hold without us knowing it.

The more you strengthen your will power, the greater your self-esteem will become. This means taking a firm stance against a habit. By keeping positive thoughts in mind, success can be easily achieved. Reaching that finishing line on the thirtieth day will raise the feel good factor which in turn will provide that valuable incentive to keep those changes going. There are twelve months in a year which could equate to twelve life changing new habits...you may not succeed at all of them but even if you only manage half, you will have changed your life for the better.

Now...the same rule can also be applied to a thirty day mini marathon. This time, you will work on several behavioural changes per day over a period of thirty days.
Examples could be something like:

Try out a different exercise program for one month...maybe Zumba, yoga or weight training.
Get out of bed half an hour earlier.
Replace a fried breakfast with muesli
Work on that new web site for half an hour per evening
Listen to a different music genre
Read four pages of a book every day
Eat a piece of fresh fruit every lunch time
Cook a meal from scratch rather than buying ready-made or take away
Replace that glass of wine before bedtime with a hot chocolate
Press and put out work clothes every evening so as they are ready to just slip on in the mornings.

Inculcate three, four or five habits into each day and ensure that every one is carried out. Chances are, you will not make it through a week let alone a month but the challenge is there for those who want to take it! Give your willpower a workout and see if you can make mincemeat out of a monthly marathon.

By prioritising these new habits, each one will interlink to the next and the process will become easier. That new Zumba CD has some great Latino tracks on it, which really lift the spirits first thing in the morning. Thirty minutes will feel like five minutes (because you will be having so much fun). Then, you will be ready for a light but nutritious breakfast which will burn off slowly and get you through to lunch time. Now, it's time to slip on those freshly pressed clothes and so on and so forth...

Forgetting to complete just one challenge on the list will likely throw you off track for the rest of them. When feelings of failure start to creep in, the whole deck of cards start tumbling down and you feel too tired to do that workout, the frying pan will start sizzling at breakfast time and those clothes will not really look that creased!

Make new habits overlap and they will complement each other. The aim behind a monthly marathon is to take a long chain of negative habits and replace them with positive ones. This will give you a more fulfilling and productive day. When worked through methodically, you can make many rapid changes over a month, rather than alter one habit at a time with a standard thirty day trial.

Preparation is the key to success as it helps to build a foundation on which you can build. For example, those Zumba workouts need to be ordered or downloaded, the muesli has to be bought and the ironing board needs to be set up every evening. Prepare for success and you will not be disappointed.

A monthly marathon is not for the faint-hearted so build it up slowly and tuck a few standard thirty day trials under your belt before you tackle the biggie. Like ever good athlete, training pushes those boundaries and edges us forward. Alternatively, try a few mini monthly marathons by working through a number of changes over five or ten days, until you gradually reach the thirty day mark...After all, you wouldn't attempt to run five miles without being able to complete a mile, would you? Those who are impatient and want to cut straight to the chase, usually fall at the first hurdle...often never to return.

If you feel that there are colleagues or family members who will likely mock your master plan, try to distance yourself from them as much as possible or even keep a monthly marathon to yourself. Someone who is ready to see you fail is going to do very little for your stamina and will add a ball and chain to a challenge which is already no walk in the park.

Don't throw in anything too time consuming...all it takes is one energy draining task and the rest of the changes will become an upward battle. For instance, cutting out meat and opting for a raw vegan diet could make you feel dizzy and disorientated. Feeling out of sorts will drain the enthusiasm and all of your other tasks will become chores that are too difficult to face.

Thirty day trials and monthly marathons are challenging and fun ways to lock in some serious gains. These positive changes can help you to carve out a new career, provide a healthier way of living or learn a new skill. By working through a chain of positive habits, you can make great leaps forwards in just thirty days.