What's with 30-day challenges?

An article writer likes doing 30-day challenges. What she called "challenges" were things she didn't currently do. She thinks they work to change behavior or stretch her capacity because, among other things, they present a manageable chunk of time in one's life.

Another writer doesn't think very highly of the idea but suggests a few that could work.

It turns out 30-day challenges are pretty common. There were even more when I searched "psychology of 30-day challenges."

30 days seems a convenient way to set apart a manageable length of time and seems related to how long it takes to develop good habits. However, the popular duration of 21 days isn't always the right length.

A more holistic approach seems to be more environmental. Create an environment around you that encourages permanent change. For example, if you want to change your diet, clear out your refrigerator and pantry of the kinds of food you want to avoid and replace that food with the kind you think you should be eating.
Wordsworth on the trail

Spend some time reading (slowly, mind you) William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798." This is what might hope to see because Nordic walking takes you outside and into nature.

Here's a sampler from his poem:
  • ...again I hear / These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs / With a soft inland murmur.—Once again / Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, / That on a wild secluded scene impress / Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect / The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
  • The day is come when I again repose / Here, under this dark sycamore, and view / These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, / Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, / Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves / 'Mid groves and copses. 
  • Once again I see / These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines / Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, / Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke / Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
  • Therefore let the moon / Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; / And let the misty mountain-winds be free / To blow against thee: and, in after years, / When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 
  • Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind / Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, / Thy memory be as a dwelling-place / For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, / If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, / Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts / Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, / And these my exhortations!
A scene worth contemplating with your valentine before snapping a selfie and moving on.

Happy Valentine's Day.
                              Going solo

                              William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" puts you in the mood to get out into nature with your Nordic walking poles. 

                              Some tidbits:
                              • I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils; / Beside the lake, beneath the trees, / Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
                              • The waves beside them danced; but they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
                              • I gazed—and gazed—but little thought / What wealth the show to me had brought:
                              • For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude; / And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils.
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