CALCULATING THE CHALLENGES

The Challenge number is one of the few areas of numerology in which subtraction is used. It is derived from your date of birth, using the month, the day, and the year, in that order. (The European style of using first the day, then the month, then the year should not be used.)

To find your Challenges, use the following formula.

NOTE: When calculating your Challenge Numbers, all Master Numbers are reduced to single digits.

In our example of Tom Cruise, born 7/3/1962, we reduce each of these units (the month, the day, and the year) to single digits. The result is 7, 3, 9.

To find the First Challenge we subtract the month of birth from the day of birth, or vice versa. In our example, we subtract 3 from 7 = 4.

The Second Challenge results from subtracting the day of birth from the year of birth, or vice versa. In our example, we deduct 3 from 9 = 6.

The Third and main Challenge is found by subtracting the First and Second Challenge, or vice versa. In our example, 6 - 4 = 2.

NOTE: The 0 Challenge is very common.

The Fourth Challenge is found by subtracting the month of birth from the year of birth, or vice versa. In our example, we deduct 7 from 9 = 2.

In short:

The 1st Challenge is the difference between the month and day of birth.

The 2nd Challenge is the difference between the day and year of birth.

The 3rd or Main Challenge equals the difference between the 1st and 2nd Challenge

The 4th Challenge is the difference between the month and year of birth.

Notice that the First Challenge appears below the month and day of birth, the Second Challenge below the day and year of birth, the Third or Main Challenge is centered directly below the day of birth, while the Fourth Challenge fills the lower triangle of this star-shaped arrangement.



THE MEANING OF THE CHALLENGES
Each of us is born with both strengths and weaknesses. Numerology looks at life as if it were an educational process that is meant to bring out and enhance our talents, and turn our weaknesses into strengths. This serves to complete our being.

The job of becoming whole is one in which we must face our weaknesses and consciously work to improve ourselves. There are four Challenges to be faced during our lives. For many of us, the same challenge is repeated, while others have four distinctly different lessons to learn.

The Challenges on your life's path provide specific lessons that you must attend to, and, in order to inspire and help you, life will place you in situations that require the specific characteristics of your Challenge numbers.

The four Challenges you are required to overcome during the course of this lifetime will influence you during different periods of your life, except for the Third or Main Challenge, which lasts from birth until death. The Challenges are fluid periods of your life, not confined to specific years so much as general periods. All of your Challenges are present at birth, like actors standing in the wings.

THE FIRST CHALLENGE
The duration of the First Challenge usually lasts from birth until approximately the age of 30 to 35.

THE SECOND CHALLENGE
The Second Challenge usually lasts until the age of about 35 to 55/60.

THE THIRD CHALLENGE
This Challenge carries much weight and will be felt throughout your life. For that reason, it is also called the Main Challenge.

As you master this challenge, your life will come more and more under your own control. You will incorporate the positive aspects of the challenge into your character. This is it's purpose in the first place. Therefore, there is implicit in the challenge a chance for great reward.

In short, this may be the secret to your success.

THE FOURTH CHALLENGE
The Fourth Challenge is most strongly felt during the latter part of our lives, beginning at the age of approximately 55/60.

0 Challenge
This is a less demanding challenge. Growth is allowed to take place without one particularly serious obstacle. This does not mean that there will not be challenges on your path, but there is no single and consistent challenge during this period.

You are being challenged to stay faithful and focused on your highest ideals.

There is an opportunity to go deeper within yourself, and discover the inner being that is you.

1 Challenge
You must learn to be independent. You will be forced to stand up for yourself and your rights. You will be faced with situations in which you will have to choose between standing up for what you think is right versus giving in to another person's demands. You will have to struggle to strengthen and know your own will power.

You will have to learn to be firm and trust your judgment. Don't run with the crowd, be an individual. This whole lesson represents the frontiers of your consciousness. Therefore, you will have to experience much trial and error, sometimes exploding with bursts of aggression, other times being intimidated and letting frustration and anger build within you until you are ready to act on your deepest instincts.

You will learn your own set of values; you will develop into an individual with original and innovative ideas.

If you have 1s in your core numbers or in your Hidden Passion this challenge will not be as difficult to learn, nor as strongly felt.

2 Challenge
You are overly sensitive and too aware of other peoples' expectations. You suppress yourself to avoid feeling conspicuous. You can be overwhelmed by self-consciousness. You fear gossip about you. As a result, you become inhibited. All of this results in a suppression of your own individuality and uniqueness. You yearn to blend into the crowd.

You let your own feelings and emotions play too big a role. Your hypersensitivity causes fear, timidity and lack of self-confidence. And you experience unnecessary fear and emotional turmoil.

Little things seem disproportionately difficult to overcome and sometimes have a paralyzing effect. Jealousy can cause much pain and misunderstanding.

These negative aspects of the challenge actually spring in part from positive characteristics you possess, especially your acute awareness and intuition. You are an antennae for other peoples feelings; you know before a word is spoken how they feel.

You lack the inner strength to maintain your own center, and try to conform to the prevailing emotional atmosphere.

This challenge makes you understanding and compassionate; you have an enormous empathy for the inner turmoil of others and can do much good for people with emotional problems.

3 Challenge
You are your own worst critic. You suppress your individuality and creativity. Each time you want to make an impression, you doubt yourself beforehand, and criticize yourself ruthlessly afterward. Your criticism of yourself is far more severe than anyone else's.

As a result, you tend to play it safe by staying on the surface, indulging in superficialities. You rarely express what goes on deep inside of you; instead, you cover up your feelings with humor or perfunctory remarks.

You often feel alone and lonely.

Your fear of social interaction causes you to strain conversation by making too many jokes and forced joviality.

It may help you to find a creative outlet for your imagination, possibly through writing, painting, singing or dance.

At the bottom of the challenge is an effort to bring out your true self. You will learn to truly value your own creative talents above anyone else's judgments. This must be viewed as a process of individuation, in which you become a whole human being, independent and free of the need to conform to others.

4 Challenge
You tend to be disorderly and disorganized. You are impractical and tend to fantasize about projects or possibilities that have little value or future.

You must learn to discriminate between iron balloons and those that will fly.

You have difficulty finishing projects because your vision becomes chaotic and loses tract of the path ahead.

You have to learn to be aware of the details. Keep your environment clean and orderly. Be efficient.

You have the ability to be practical and organized but you must learn their value. This will cause you to incorporate them into your daily life and give you the basis for success.

This is the challenge of building a lasting foundation for your life. You will need perseverance and repeated effort. Get-rich-quick schemes will likely backfire; persistent effort is the key to your future happiness.

5 Challenge
You are in danger of becoming a rolling stone. Your desire to experience and enjoy life can overwhelm every other priority you have. Your need for freedom dominates you. You want to try everything and go everywhere.

You must guard against overindulgence -- and even dependence upon -- alcohol, food, drugs, and sex.

You must work at establishing and maintaining long- lasting relationships. Be tolerant and understanding. This will enable you to have people in your life who are more than mere company.

You need to discipline your urge to change every situation that does not immediately suit you. Stick with projects, maintain your friendships, don't abandon people or situations the minute they become the slightest bit difficult.

If few fives are in the chart you have a fear of change and can not let go of people and situations. This holds you in the past, restricting your growth. Learn to take prudent risks and be more adventurous.

6 Challenge
Your challenge deals with distorted idealism. Your ideals are unrealistically high, making life difficult for you and others. You have a hard time being satisfied with anything you do, or with what others do for you. You lack gratitude. This prevents you from seeing the beauty in your life. You may also suffer from rigid thinking, which keeps you from having a clear perspective that would otherwise awaken you to the many good things you have received.

At bottom, this challenge is about having blinders on. You are unable to see a broader view, which makes you think you have all the answers. This keeps away information and perspectives that would be helpful to you.

Your desire to be of service to others is sincere. However, it may be blocking you from seeing the necessity of working on your own inner development.

You can be domineering and righteous, often telling others what is right and what is wrong. You often feel a lack of appreciation from others.

There is an opportunity to be of service, to teach and heal, but you will have to achieve a balanced perspective between your idealism and your resistance to personal transformation.

7 Challenge
You are highly skeptical of anything that cannot be proven to you. You are particularly doubtful of anything having to do with spiritual matters. It is, therefore, difficult for you to find a personal philosophy that would give you peace of mind and insight into the purpose of your life.

You repress many of your natural inclinations because they do not fit into your intellectual or rational thinking.

You are in need of the part of your being that you are now repressing: the child within.

All the characteristics that have to do with the irrational and holistic side of life -- spirit, humor, playfulness, and intuition -- are being shut out.

Your challenge is to find some philosophy and, ideally, a community that will give you additional perspectives, and force you to bring out the many other characteristics that are a fundamental part of you. Otherwise, you risk loneliness and isolation.

You have to learn faith. When you consider that most of life is made up of the invisible world -- thoughts, emotions, insight, and love -- you can begin to appreciate that only a small part of life is within the domain of your senses.

You may have too much pride. You may experience a deep and humbling transformation that will set free the inner being you are keeping trapped within you.

8 ChallengeYou risk making money and power the main priority in your life. Your desire for financial wealth threatens to obscure your other human characteristics and spiritual well being.

This Challenge causes financial concerns to overwhelm all other needs, and influences everything you do. You risk the fate of Midas, turning everything into gold, yet isolating yourself from other parts of life.

For many with this challenge, there is a danger of becoming so obsessed with materialism that they may be tempted to ruthless and unscrupulous business practices, possibly crossing the borders of the law and causing themselves and others much misery.

You are facing a very real spiritual test in which you must realize that

"Man does not live by bread alone." If you overcome this hurdle, you will achieve real spiritual and material balance, and can make yourself a powerful river, bringing an inexhaustible supply of nourishment to all, rather than a lake, whose nature is limited and can easily grow stagnant and can no longer support life.

9 Challenge
A 9 Challenge does not exist, because the largest difference between the nine single digit numbers 1 through 9 is 8. If you go back to reading the 0 Challenge, you will notice that the 0 Challenge actually takes on the characteristics associated with the 9.