My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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February 3, 2013
19 Comment

21 Day Relationship Challenge – Day 21

Boot Camp Perfect

21-DayChallenge-BlogPhotoCongratulations! You’ve come to the final day of the 21 Day Relationship Challenge. I hope you’ve found this Challenge to be useful—and also fun.

Today’s resolution suggests “Boot Camp Perfect.” Which means that one week, you try to follow each and every resolution faithfully. Even if you fail (and I’ve never had one perfect day, myself), it’s a helpful exercise. Difficult, but helpful.

The Challenge is over now, but ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree: strong relationships are a key to a happy life. So any steps that you take to deepen your bonds with other people are very likely to make you happier.

Good luck!  Onward!

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Other posts you might be interested in...

  1. Announcement! Join the 21 Day Relationship Challenge.
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  3. Video: Try a Week of Extreme Nice.
  4. Video: Do Something EVERY Day.
  5. Video: Do a 24-Hour “Boot Camp.”
  • SLK

    Thank you! I think it has been super helpful to be given a daily instruction. I get caught up running on the “hamster wheel” with the busyness of life and I forget to take time. I especially enjoyed the kissing each day, giving surprise treats and the comments about work/chores.

    • gretchenrubin

      I’m so happy to hear that you’ve found it useful.

  • Smartie Pants

    Thank you. Although I am very busy and already do try to be a great spouse and family member, I found this email to be a refreshing and positive tidbit to gain some wisdom from. 21 days was the right length of time to receive it, though I may be back here to your blog or other products if I miss hearing from you like that good angel perched on my shoulder.

  • Kay

    Wish I could see the whole list again, can’t seem to find older ones….but great series!

  • jim

    Quite a nice experience. Shared it with my wife and daughter and son in law. It actually worked as a conversation topic making the topics we did talk about even more valuable..

    Thank you for your efforts.

    • gretchenrubin

      Terrific!

  • Miljana

    Thank you, Grechen,
    for Congrats, thank you for 21 days socializing, shering your ideas, beliefs and experiences. Thank you for your patience and all of your advices.
    I’m sure that all of us will do our best the words and advices pour into action.

    If we help you, with our comments, just a little to change your oppinion about something, or to make clear some situations or feelings from the past, it will make us all happy, and that was the point of everything – the happiness.

    Many greetings and success in private and business life for the future, :)

  • Susanne

    Gretchen, thank you SO much for this. I did pretty much all the exercises, adapting them to my single life-style (I think I missed one but now can’t recall what it was), and found it inspiring and eye-opening. We take so much for granted in our lives, don’t we! I’m going to make it a priority to incorporate as many of these as I can on a regular basis. Thanks to everyone else here, too, for their comments and ideas. This whole experience really improved my month, and has kicked 2013 off to a really good start.

  • Raza

    Hi Gretchen. Many many thanks for the wonderful tips on relationships. I really appreciate and recommend them to anyone not currently following these – they do truly make a difference. Coincidentally, the socio-religious school of thought I follow has striking a resemblance with most of your pointers. Therefore, it suffices to say that these methods have substance and lead to healthier relationships :)

    • gretchenrubin

      I’m so happy to hear that these struck a chord with you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rachel.ruhlen Rachel Ruhlen

    I really enjoyed the project. I threw out my back near the beginning so I was great with “ask for a favor” but my compliance with anything else went out the window. I got to be the recipient of others’ warm greetings, daily kisses, and doing a chore for me!

    Overall I think you did a great job. I have a few minor comments about what didn’t work quite as smoothly but please focus on the “good job, I enjoyed this” part and not these minor things.

    1- The email vs the blog post. The email was quite a bit longer and some people were obviously only reading the blog post and not understanding. If you do something like this again I’d recommend just making the email the same as the blog post.

    2- Some people were disappointed because it was the same as in the books. I thought it was clear that it was supposed to be the same as in the books, just in a different format. But since several people didn’t get that, that’s a signal that it wasn’t clear enough. Maybe have 2-3 sentences repeated in every single post explaining what the 21-day project is (and what it isn’t).
    3- The format of the blog doesn’t lend itself to being able to find a list of all 21 challenges. Even when I click on the “21 day” tag, I can only see about 10 or so of them. There needs to be some way to collect them. I don’t know what CMS you are using but if there is a way to make that happen that would really help to add one each day instead of doing one and only each day.

    Just one more thing– Good job, I enjoyed it!

    • Kittee

      I had these same thoughts but thought I was the only one and didnt want to be a debbie downer. But I do believe it’s valuable input.

      Especially if there had been a way to look back on all 21 challenges on one page or with one link. My husband would often respond (belatedly) to the the forwarded email I sent him each day and since we were about a week behind to begin with, I had no idea what he was talking about. Day 7? What topic was that? Then I would have to go back through old posts to see which day was which. After all the clicking back and forth, sometimes I gave up. (Sorry I’m not the most patient person with computers.) Nothing seriously annoying – it just would have made things a bit easier.

      I think Gertchen’s lack of detail in the blog post versus email was to inspire the confused people to buy the book if more information was desired. Naturally she IS trying to sell a book here.

      • Kittee

        Oops, typo. Sorry, GRETCHEN.

  • Wendy

    I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed the 21 day challenge. I have both of your books in audio format but I will miss having the daily email.

    • gretchenrubin

      So happy to hear that!

  • Brenda_Lee_Nelson

    Thank you Gretchen! That was awesome AS IS!

  • http://www.facebook.com/arden.greenspangoldberg Arden Greenspan-Goldberg

    I have shared your blog with my married
    couple patients. Love ur mindful helpful tips and
    suggestions:)

    • gretchenrubin

      Terrific!

  • Tania

    I loved this, but do have a suggestion: might you give a tip per week, instead of one per day? There was alot to take in, and I might have been able to put more into action with more time on each item.

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