The Badge Beasts

What are we doing here? Click THIS to read how this works. Then you can move on to the Badges. Thanks!

Welcome to The Badge Beasts Challenge. Try some new fun things, earn some badges, make some friends, become a better person. Or just try to WIN! Technically, everyone will be a winner but maybe there will be some special awards at the end of the year, so go for it. 

GOAL: For you to finish all the challenges listed below in one year.

For each challenge you complete you will earn a BADGE. Collect all the badges and you will become an official BADGE BEAST and earn a Badge Beast Certificate of Awesome Honor.

This is not meant to be rushed. Some challenges will be very easy to do, but some should take longer. The hope is you spread them out over the course of the year. Even if you’re done quickly, we don’t finish until everyone is finished!

You can do these challenges in any order. This is a test year so if you don’t do everything that’s okay. We want to know what worked, what didn’t, what was fun, what wasn’t. And of course, any ideas to make this better. Even you have a new idea for a challenge throw it out and maybe we can try it out as we go. Also, if something really needs to be scrapped, let us know. This is a work in progress!

Each challenge will have a task you must complete but YOU get to set what your actual goal is for each task. For example the reading challenge can be one book or 15. Whatever is a challenge for you. There are no real minimums or maximums. Just do as much or as little as you enjoy doing. You can always increase or decrease your goal as you go along.

If you really like one of the challenges, you can “level up” by doing it multiple times. Credit will be awarded for each completion! Get yourself on that leaderboard! Which doesn’t exist yet but trust me it will especially if I’m doing the best in anything.

You can do each challenge all by yourself, with friends, or together as a family. Ideally, we’d love this to be a community of like minded people, where he all help and inspire each other. Which means the more you want to share of your journey the better and if you want to team up with anyone in the group for some of the challenges even better. Signature dish party anyone?

Important note though, we are not competing against each other. You are only competing against yourself and your goals so don’t worry if anyone is doing “more” than you. But, we are here to inspire each other.

Also, unless/until I can make this website more functional I would like a way for all of us to be able to communicate and keep each other updated when we do things. Considering a Facebook Group is everyone has that, or maybe WhatsApp? Let me know your thoughts on what’s best.

Okay, here is the assignment. And outside of the first and last one listed, you can go in any order. Good luck!

If you have any questions email or text me and ask away!

NOTE: The submitting form is NOT operational yet so just email me with any updates and Badge Completion info. I’ll be tracking it offline for now.

NOTE2: When I say you will get a Badge, right now it’s an imaginary-but-hopefully-coming-later-official Badge. Lots of work to be done this year. But eventually you will get some Badges!

The Badges

1) STARTER

Your first challenge is simply to find someone to be your Witness.  That’s it. Congratulations, you just earned your first badge! See how easy this is. 

The job of the witness is to sign off on your successful challenges. You complete, they verify. Also, they will hopefully motivate you and keep you on track. Your witness does not have to also join, but feel free to convince them to. The only twist on this is you cannot be a witness for each other. So if they want in, they must find someone else to be their witness. This keeps the new blood coming in!

How does the Witness submit? They can just email me (since the official form is not working yet) and update me on what you did. And they can cc: you of course.

2) STUDY

3) EXPLORE

Visit someplace you haven’t been but wanted to go. A town, park, museum, country, etc. Let us know where you went and why.

4) HABIT

Form a new good habit or try breaking a bad one. Can you do it or not do it for a month?

Do you best and lets us know how it goes and how long you made it last.

5) REFLECT

Explore some kind of mindfulness or inner connection. It can be meditation, therapy, a self help book or podcast, yoga, general reflection. What did you do and how did it affect you? 

6) RISK

Do something you’ve always been afraid to do/try.

You only live once. What have you been avoiding forever? Now is the time. What’s the worst that can happen???? Dive in with no regrets!

7) PLAN

Create a DAY-OF-FUN for yourself, or for you and friends/family. Plan, invite, do. You’re in charge, do whatever you want to do for a full day and if you can rope someone in to join you then all the better.

8) KINDNESS

Do any random act of kindness for another human being or an animal. 

So many ways to qualify for this one. We just need one but the more you do in a year the better. If it’s fun keep going. Keep leveling up on this badge! 

Ideas:

This should be one of your bigger challenges. But what is a big physical goal for you is up to you. It could be to run your first marathon, or just do your first pushup. Hopefully it’s something you’ve never done before.  There is no pressure to conquer the world here or to compete against whatever anyone else is doing.  And keep it safe of course. And no need to just do one.

If you can’t do something yourself due to physical limitations, inspire or coach someone else to achieve a physical goal.

I’m going for at least two in this category and one of them will be to walk every street in the town of Pelham, my home town. I’ll be tracking it with MayMyRun to make sure I hit every street. It should take me a few months if I can get out once a week.

10) CREATE

Simply be creative. 

You know when people use the term, “The Talent…”. Well now it’s going to be you. But we want it to be a little challenging since that’s the point of all these so the goal would be to try to create something in a field you’re not already an expert. Or if it’s in your field of expertise, try it in a new way. Some examples, but again, feel free to do whatever you want outside of these suggestions:

Do something that benefits planet Earth in some way. Something you’re not already doing. And remember, the more things you do the more leveling up you’ll do on this badge. Maybe there’s a prize for whoever levels up the most. Try it and find out!

Ideas: 

Go Meat Free for a Day, a Week, or longer. Plant something edible and eat it. Plant some native flowers. Fill up a bag of garbage on the beach or get a community to clean up. Try to rid yourself of as much plastic as possible. Change a way you’re being wasteful. Go solar or inspire someone else too.

12) UNPLUG

Spend 24 hours off the grid as much as you can. 

We’re talking about channeling your inner Laura Ingalls Wilder. It might be hard to avoid modern comforts completely but do the best you can. A great way to do this is go on an overnight camping trip with your phone off (but keep it on you for emergencies of course). Or spend the day at home with the family under candlelight without any electronics and keep the showers cold. Let us know how you pulled this off. 

13) DECLUTTER 

The goal is to clean out/declutter whatever is in need of cleaning out. You know those boxes in the garage that have been there for ten years. Now is the time to deal with it. Don’t leave it for whoever is the unlucky person who would have to handle it after you’re gone. Let us see the before and after. Make sure to try to donate/freecycle/gift whatever you’re getting rid of.

If you’re already in great shape in this area then offer to help that friend we all have who is not as minimalistic as you. 

14) COOK

Cook something you’ve never tried to cook before OR do you have a Signature Dish and do you want to make it for someone? The goal of this challenge is to either make your signature dish and share it with someone else or better yet create a new one! And of course, share it with me, I mean a friend. Mangiare! If you want to create a new drink, add that in also.

15) MAIL

Handwrite a letter to someone and then mail it. That’s it.

Something we used to do all the time but now seems kind of freaky. Let’s try to make it less weird. I guarantee whoever gets it will be thrilled. Who are you writing to? Note: Good tie in for the day you go off the grid because what else are you going to be doing? 

16) ANIMAL

Make the life of at least one animal’s life better.  

Ideas:

Go find an animal who’s in a kill shelter and make it your goal to find a home for them! Do whatever it takes to keep them alive. Support a shelter financially, or with your time. Go visit an animal sanctuary.  Better yet, volunteer there for a day.  They are everywhere. Make it a fund day trip with a friend. Plant some animal friendly trees/plants in your yard.  Or a hummingbird feeder. Or install a bird bath or water supply. Sarah will have plenty of suggestions for this last part.

17) CIVICS

Participate in the political process, either nationally or locally.

Ideas:

Vote, especially in the smaller off-season elections. Run for something. Even if you don’t want to run for office, write down what you would do if you were elected. Show us your mission statement. Become a poll worker. Go to a town meeting. Even better, speak up at the meeting. Find out something about how your local government operates and educate us on it. 

18) FAMILY

Do something nice for someone in your family, or in your chosen family.

Ideas: 

Connect with a family member you’ve lost touch with. Interview an older family member you don’t know much about and learn something. Surprise someone in your family with a gift or a trip or a surprise party just because they deserve it! Go help a family member in need.  Clean their house, paint their fence, whatever you can do that they might appreciate. 

19) VOLUNTEER

Volunteer for something.

Ideas:

Spend some time volunteering somewhere. Become a big brother/big sister. Raise money for a charity. Volunteer your time helping a friend in need. Start a charity. Basically, just volunteer your time to help someone else. And may the odds be in your favor. 

20) INTERNATIONAL 

Do something for a person or cause outside of your current country.

Ideas:

Donate to a foreign cause.  Kiva, or another microloan company are good ways to help. Take a volunteer trip to another country. Or support someone who is. Learn about a country or group of people you know very little about. Spend a day with a friend who is from another country and learn more about their culture. If you know a foreign born speaker, learn a little of their language and have a conversation with them.

21) READ

Read a book. Or more. 

At least one but set your own goals. If you want you can write up a book report on one or share your thoughts about your favorite book so far with the group then write it up or video and share it. We just want you to go a little further than you already do normally.

22) BUILD

Build something.

With wood, steel, paper, whatever.  Make a diorama.  Build a model.  The Lego Millenium Falcon if you have $850. Use tools.  Or if you’re highly skilled already in the world of building, build something for someone else or teach them how to do it.  Or fix something yourself you’d normally pay to have fix.  There’s a million videos on youtube telling you how to fix everything so there’s no excuse not to try! Just learn something new in the process or get better at it. I put up a closet shelf a few years ago all by myself and I’m still talking about great a job I did it so I know I will enjoy this one.

23) PHOTOGRAPHY

Share your 10 favorite pictures you’ve taken during this challenge. If there’s something to say about them, elaborate. Ideally you’d do this at the end of the challenge and have some pictures from the challenge but they don’t all have to be related to this. Just pick your 10 or so of your best from the next 12 months to share with us. This should be one of your last challenges to finish.

24) PATHFINDER

Have a general knowledge of the district within a three-mile radius of your house.  

The goal:

To learn the location of the principal buildings, such as the town or city hall, post office, school, police, library. You should be able guide people at any time, by day or by night, around your area. Create a useful map for locals. And there are other ways to do this one if this one sounds too boring. Instead you can learn something new about your local area and report back to us. Was it a battleground in the revolutionary war? Is there a building of interest? Basically, become smarter about the area you live. Every area has its secrets and history! 

25) BONUS

If you complete all the above challenges, you then can create your own challenge. It can be anything. Let us know what you chose! Have fun and congratulations on becoming a Badge Beast!

Did you enjoy this? If so, get ready for next season. You can choose to advance to the next level, repeat this one, or create your own track for others to try. Teachers, this can also be adapted for use with the kids!