As much as we would like it to be so, no one can wake up one day a completely changed person. Any meaningful change to your life takes constant effort over a sustained period of time. While the idea of long term change can seem scary, it also means a little bit everyday can take you a long way in forging habits you’ve always wanted to.

If you’re looking for a way to jumpstart some self-improvement, here are some monthly challenges you can set yourself.

#1 Dry July 

Dry July, or Dry [insert month here], is a month long challenge where you refrain from drinking alcohol. If you’ve found yourself going overboard more often than not, or just want to save money from all the nights out, going cold turkey for an entire month could do a world of good. 

#2 Monthly Fitness Challenges 

If you’ve been meaning to hit the gym, a monthly fitness challenge could be a great starting point. There’s a whole range available on sites like Pinterest, including 27 day squat challenges, 30 day beach body challenges and 31 day ab challenges.

Whether you want to work on a particular body part or want to ease into a fitness routine, there’s a monthly challenge out there for you. Plus, it saves you shelling out money for a gym membership. 

#3 NaNoWriMo

Any writers out there know how challenging it is to produce large bodies of work. If you have an idea you’ve been sitting on, or desperately need to make headway on your manuscript, NaNoWriMo is definitely worth a shot.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is held every November online. You can sign up here, track your progress, and try to “win” by producing at least 50,000 words of work in 30 days. That means 1667 words a day, every day.

While it can definitely seem like a mammoth of a task, NaNoWriMo becomes something of an internet phenomenon every November, and people all over the world get involved. Having a collective of people writing alongside you may be just the push you need to commit, and you may just have a novel by the end of it. 

#4 30 Day Napping Challenge

The importance of sleep cannot be understated. Sleep deprivation bleeds into almost every aspect of your life. If you’ve found yourself without as much sleep as you’d like or need, developing a napping routine can be life-saving.

For this challenge, start with a 5-minute snooze on day 1, then increase your nap time in 5 minute increments each day, making sure break up your streaks with a rest from napping every 5 days. On day 30 you’ll be napping for a whole 2 hours, and have reclaimed hours of lost sleep.

#5 Save $465

As the sage 20-something parable goes: life is all fun and games until you start paying for it. Money always manages to elude us, even though we were sure we still had a couple hundred left in the bank. If your bank balance could use a perk up, try this challenge and end the month $465 richer.

The beauty of this challenge is that it’s as simple as it is effective. On the first day, save $1. On the second, save $2, and so on. By the end of the month you’ll have accumulated $465, and have developed a habit of saving every single day. If you’ve really stuck to it, try resetting the challenge every 30 days and watch the cash pile up where you used to see it disappear.

Here’s to the next month of self-improvement!