Many products now offer a 30-day-money-back-guarantee, and these offers are extremely valuable to you as a customer, because they enable you to try a product without risk: If you don’t like it, you can simply return it after 30 days of use, and that’s it.
How would you like the idea to apply the same principle to life changes you plan to do? It would make things a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it? You could just try out about anything you want, and if you don’t like the results, you dump it after 30 days and be gone with it. And if you like it? Well, then you just continue. And as there is no evil salesperson 
involved in the process, you could even extend the trial period to 60 or 90 days if after 30 days, you are still not sure about it.
You can use the Try-Before-You-Buy-Approach to nearly every change in your life.
I’ve used it many times since I first read about it two years about to change aspects of my life - some only temporary, and some permanently. This includes various dietary changes as well as learning vocabulary regularly when I was in school.
I found it a lot easier to commit to a change for only 30 days, than saying I have to do this for the rest of my life, and it released a lot of fears that may arise when you try to change something - anything - about your life.
Will you commit to waking up an hour earlier for the rest of your life? Probably not. But can you do it for just 30 days? I bet!
Here is a simple template that you can use to manage this. It is not that visually appealing, but it will do the trick:
Try Before You Buy: I will __________ for 30 days!
1 - 10: O O O O O O O O O O
11 - 20: O O O O O O O O O O
21 - 30: O O O O O O O O O OWhat exactly will I do for the next 30 days?
…
What exactgly will this do for me after I succeeded?
…
What can I do to make things easier to begin with or follow through?
…
When exactly will I begin?
On __________
If you feel that the “natural” benefits if you succeed are not enough to get you through the adaption period, you can add the following to boost your motivation:
How will I reward myself after successful 30 days?
…
This is exactly the scheme that I am following when planning a new 30-Day-Trial to a new habit in my life. Let me show an example, so you get an Idea on what this will look on with content:
Try Before You Buy: I will not smoke for 30 days!
1 - 10: X X - X X X X X X X
11 - 20: X X X X O O O O O O
21 - 30: O O O O O O O O O OWhat exactly will I do for the next 30 days?
- I will not smoke cigarettes or consume nicotine in any other way.
What exactgly will this do for me after I succeeded?
- I will no longer be addicted to putting these little cancer sticks into my mouth 20 times a day
- I will become a lot healthier
- My fitness will improve a lot
- …
What can I do to make things easier to begin with or follow through?
- Put all smoking utensils away.
- Search the company of other smokers to be able to say “Hey, I’m free, while you must still inhale dangerous smoke into your lungs every few minutes. Poor guys!”
- …
When exactly will I begin?
Tomorrow!
How will I reward myself after successful 30 days?
I will grab the money I saved throughout the 30 days, and go shopping for everything I want.
Here’s a small list to give you an idea on what you could do:
I invite you to post your own ideas in the comments to share them with others. Also, if you have additional ideas on what habits to try, have a hard time with it, or want to share your own story to inspire others, please use the comment form or send me a private message using my contact form.
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