Challenge Accepted: How to Satisfy Your Inner Teen

You can provoke a teenager with a simple question: “Are you weak?” For adult uncles and aunts, such a provocation is not enough. They no longer have an emotionally charged experience about the consequences of turning down the challenge. The feeling of community and belonging to the group, when you do something for “their” or together with them, has also lost its sharpness. In general, adults are almost impossible to take on weakly. Unless, of course, we are talking about a challenge.

The Challenge is an emotional outlet and a motivational oasis for our bored inner teens. The challenge idea works and pays off for a number of reasons.

“Weak” for adults

Concentrated emotional jolt, like adolescence, but orderly and controlled due to the focus on self-responsibility (advantage of growing up). The maturity of mental processes allows us to realize the scale of the consequences of any, even the most crazy challenges. So “challenge accepted” is an internal decision. And mom won’t swear, even if you get involved in a bet without a hat. For the eternal parental argument: “And if everyone jumps off the bridge, will you bend down too?” There is an excellent counterargument. Its essence is in its own inner parental figure, which has long allowed itself all sorts of ambiguous desires and takes responsibility for their implementation.

Distribution of responsibilities

There are too many obligations in the adult world. The opportunity to join a group of people who are interested in a challenge is a chance to reduce pressure in the decision-making area. All people who respond to the challenge (even virtually connected through a hashtag or a flash mob on social networks) create a mass of accomplices. Responsibility for participation in the challenge is evenly distributed among all group members. And this decision is easier for you. The result is a slightly fermented teenage desire for community in conditions of a reduced burden of responsibility.

Focus on process

Adults are so worried about the end result that they do not always have time to enjoy the process. The challenge allows you to shift the focus of attention to the feeling of presence. Experiments with possibilities and volitional efforts turn you to face your own reactions and states.

In addition, shifting the focus to the process alleviates the paralyzing effect of result anxiety (when you are so worried about everything being perfect that you don’t do it at all). Procedurality is revealed especially well in long-term challenges, where there is a program of mini-challenge for every day. It’s hard to believe in the ability to go without sugar for 14 days or do a plank for a week, but a daily checkmark next to a completed task brings “unrealistic” results closer.

Risk control

The challenge has instructions. Without her, it would have been a gamble, improvisation and recklessness. You can imagine in advance where in the challenge you will embarrass yourself, in which you will look stupid. General predictability allows adults to be spontaneous and unforced in their reactions.

holy competition

Incredibly motivating some individuals and paralyzing others. The experimental nature of the challenge pushes the competition of achievements into the background. The challenge is primarily about testing the possibilities. But if competition is important for you personally and stimulates volitional processes, then you can always bring the competitive moment to the fore.

Transforming Pride

The challenge is initially directed at the ego. Achievements from the “I can” series raise self-esteem even for the most harassed people. “And if you couldn’t?” the attentive reader will ask. But he dared to try – this is already a victory over himself, over “an inert, boring and incurious creature.” This act will bring joy to the inner teenager, who would shoot himself if he knew what his inquisitive mind and interest in himself could turn into in adulthood. So take on the challenges – cheer up your inner teenager!