The Last 90 Days Challenge: What Can You Give Up To Get More?
If your feed is anything like mine, you’re acutely aware the countdown is on.
There are -90 days left in 2025.
Since Tuesday, untold numbers of October first-themed posts have filled social media, commanding us to make the last three months of the year the best three months of the year.
It’s mad-dash energy — chock full of productivity hacks we can jump on to crush our stagnant goals N-O-W before the rest of the year slips by without achieving “success.”
I call BS on this cultural narrative.
We don’t have to accept this perpetual state of being overwhelmed and under satisfied.
Last year, when I ran the Do Less Experiment for the first time, it was downright uncomfortable because I knew no other way than to hustle.
Like most of us, I was led to believe change meant more. More habits. More discipline. More goals to motivate us.
But in studying people I admire, the ones who create sustainable lifestyles and businesses that support them, I noticed a pattern.
They finally get what they want out of life when they ask, “What am I willing to give up?”
Like, before writing his breakout book The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss had a sports supplement company that was consuming him. He cut out high-maintenance customers, time-sucking tasks, and unprofitable products to automate and reduce his work hours, which gave him the freedom to write and launch the book.
But it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as an entire career overhaul.
Maybe for you it’s the project you're procrastinating on because deep down you don’t really want to do it—you just think you should.
Or the bad habit that zaps your energy and chips away at your self-respect?
Or the client/friend/partner whose messages make you sick to your stomach?
While the rest of the world is telling you to add more and do more before 2026, what if for the last 90 days of 2025, instead of hustling to hit external measures of success, you started identifying ways to do less of what prevents you from leading the life you really want?
What if January 2026 isn’t a new year filled with the same old?
What if you use the last 90 days to put the January 1 version of you in a dreamy position?
Here are three ideas to edit your life for a real fresh start in the new year.
The “Should” Audit
List your commitments, everything you regularly do – work tasks, volunteer roles, social obligations, family responsibilities, even recurring chores.
Ask yourself: Why am I doing this?
Is it out of genuine enjoyment, obligation, guilt, or fear of missing out?
When I did this for the first time in 2024, it forced me to reckon with an uncomfortable truth: I’d outgrown my business model.
Social media management drains me. I felt like I “should” have it as an offer because I’m really good at it, but what I really needed was to change my offer suite so I loved my work more.
This didn’t happen overnight, but it gave me the next right step toward the life I wanted to create.
Prompt: What don’t you want your life to look like 3 months from now?
2. What Are Your Productive Distractions?
We all know about unproductive distractions (scrolling), but it takes humility to recognize our productive distractions.
These are tasks that check the output box but take us away from the big projects.
For me, the productive distraction was creating more posts for social media. I love sharing my work with my community.
It’s satisfying to hit publish and get an instant response, but there are seasons, I need to focus on the bigger picture.
For example, last year at this time, I needed to be working on a course that gives people a complete system for telling stories, not just quick wins.
Writing a course is lonely work, no matter how much you love the topic.
I’d much rather have conversations in the comments about storytelling, but my time needs to be on the real work.
So went down to posting three days a week while I dedicate myself to the craft of course creation.
Prompt: What’s task can hit pause on to focus on what you really want?
3. Focus On The Feeling
More than any task or to-do list item, ask yourself: How don’t I want to feel anymore?
Personally, I was sick of feeling not good enough. It’s astonishing that I got anything worthwhile done talking to myself the way I did.
My inner critic ran the show. There’s a lot of focus on unburdening yourself from the weight of other people’s opinions, but I needed to unburden myself from the weight of my own dang self-judgment. Speaking kindly to myself is the most profound shift I’ve ever made in my life.
It’s an ongoing practice, but after a lifetime of telling myself stories about ways I don’t measure up, three months is a relatively short period of time to cultivate a supportive inner monologue.
Prompt: What’s a story you tell yourself that needs rewriting?
What Can You Give Up To Get More Satisfaction?
What if instead of spending the last 90 days of 2025 rushing around trying to accomplish more, you figured out the areas of your life that are leaking energy—and systemically cut them out?
Perhaps the most surprising thing that’s happened since I’ve systematically phased out bad and costly habits, ruthlessly edited overcomplicated processes, and cut out the *shoulds* and *musts* heaped upon me, is that I feel like my true self. I suspect it’s because I have more energy and more time to tune into myself instead of getting swept up in the world’s priorities.
My hope is that these ideas will fill your cup so you can progress peacefully on the things that matter most to you in 2026.
Thanks for Reading!
Cyndi
