The Unnamed Challenge

What To Do For The Next Four Years

Challenge yourself to grow in the way you most want to grow.

These are challenging times for all of us. Here’s how to stay sane through the tumultuous uncertainty and consistently take action on what matters most to you.

You are invited to set sail with a growing community, to set your true course and to keep moving in your chosen direction no matter the weather throws in your face. Here’s how you can take part in the Unnamed Challenge.

The unnamed challenge is unnamed because it is different for everyone – you make it your own. There’s also another reason it’s unnamed but we’ll get to that later.

Everyone who participates will challenge themselves to take action in a chosen discipline or activity every day. What that activity or discipline is is up to you. Obviously it’s something positive that you feel good about. We could take it a step further to say it something that feeds your soul. Or you could think of it as something connected with how you most want to contribute to the world, steps towards how you would most like to serve the planet. Or maybe it is something just for you. Something that brings body, mind, heart and soul together. Something that elevates you and by proximity elevates the spirits of those around you. That’s all you need to know to get started!

The inspiration for the unnamed challenge began when I joined the Stadler easel challenge in January 2025. This challenge was more specific. You had to draw or paint everyday from life (not from a photo or video or zoom) and post your progress everyday for the month. When the challenge was nearing completion several friend kindly encouraged me to keep going. The new president had just taken office and in response to that one friend commented, “I love this challenge and I hope you keep doing it for the next 4 years.” And that’s how the unnamed challenge was born!

It is now mid May, almost 100 days in! During the past three plus months I have defined what The Unnamed Challenge is for me. Here’s what I came up with:

Paint or draw (anything) everyday – there is no minimum time and no minimum accomplishment. There just has to be some visible progress
Post my progress everyday – It might be an incomplete sketch, a painting completed that day or any progress made on any painting or drawing that was already started
Keep the streak unbroken until the next president takes office
If I do break the streak, get back up and start again

That is just an example. You can join the challenge and use the hashtag #unnamedchallenge no matter what parameters you choose for yourself. The possibilities are endless – here are just a few that come to mind. Please let me know what you choose and I will add it to the list.

Writing, music, performance or any creative endeavor
Social or political activism
Volunteering
Learning a skill that will help others whether or not you get paid for it
Practice or learning that leads to a more aligned livelihood
Any activity that feeds your soul and helps you show up in your life in a more positive and powerful way.

The main point is that whatever happens over the next four years, we will use this time to focus on, and actually do something positive that we can share with the world in some way.

Let’s talk about the other reason for the word, “unnamed.”

In my house, we are not allowed to say the name of the current president. It is something like the Harry Potter movies, “he who must not be named.” My wife started this practice and at first I thought it was kind of silly but it eventually started to make a lot of sense to me. When I have to make refer to him in my writing, the name will be incomplete. Just _rump.

In 2016, when I still wanted to believe that this whole mess could never happen, I read this article in The New Yorker. It was fascinating in a lot of ways but my biggest take away was that _rump loved any kind of publicity, good or bad. The article’s author met _rump because he published a scathing story about his racist tenant practices. To the authors astonishment, _rump complimented him on the article and asked him to ghost write his book.

This got the wheels turning in my mind. It was obvious that _rump knew how to control the news cycle and to get in the headlines almost everyday. It also became obvious that he didn’t care who he pissed off. In fact that often seemed to be the point. I started to get a spooky feeling that there was some kind of black magic going on and he had found a way to feed off all the negativity coming at him. That somehow it gave him power and made him stronger.

Whether there is any energetic magic or not it’s important to look at how we let ourselves be affected. It might help if we all got honest with ourselves about how much we depend on _rump to give our indignation a focus. To get us riled up. Because if we are honest, we might find we drown to that like a moth to a flame. I constantly have to stop myself from getting into patterns where I scan the headlines everyday for specifically for something new that I can be indignant about.

It is essential to stay informed but but even more important to stay positive. We have to look at our state of mind and ask if it a state that will bring good things into the world. Is this level or engagement with news and media making us more able affect change or is it weakening us. Really take time to notice how it affects your state of mind and your level of empowerment when you scan the headlines and engage with the media?

Then challenge yourself to do something positive every day – to actually take action – and check in to see how that affects your state of mind and your sense of empowerment.

The Unnamed Challenge

What To Do For The Next Four Years

Challenge yourself to grow in the way you most want to grow.

Build Bridges

Resist

Create