We’re no strangers to 30-day challenges; yoga, vegan, raw food – you name it and we’re up for it. Lately our digital team has been having a ton of fun participating in Australian blogger, Fat Mum Slim’s, monthly photo-a-day challenges. We love that it forces us to take a few minutes each day to take in our surroundings and flex our creative muscles. Inspired by this concept we created our own photo-a-day challenge aptly named, What The Focus September (#WTFSEPT). Read on for all the challenge details and how you can participate this month! #themorethemerrier

wtf is #wtfsept?

The challenge uses the Instagram platform and is quite simple. For 30 days starting September 1^st, take one photo a day using the list of words as your inspiration (example: on September 1^st you’ll snap a pic of what ‘centre’ means to you). Don’t forget to hashtag it with #wtfsept so that everyone can see your beautiful images! We’ll be scouring our feeds to find our favourite photos each week and sharing them here on the blog!

but I’m not on instagram…

No worries friends! We are insta-obsessed but if you’re not on this channel feel free to participate on your own through your other favourite social networks. You can also follow along on your desktop using Hashgram to see everyone’s photos all in one spot!

Camp Moomba Yogathon and Blissfest, Vancouver BC, July 24, 2010.

Name: Shirley
BHAG: I take photos from space by 2020!

what is a bhag?

A BHAG (pronounced "bee-hag") is a big, hairy, audacious goal!

why share your bhag?

The more you share your goals, the more likely it is you will achieve them. For the month of June we will be sharing a BHAG every day on lululemon.com. Want to share your BHAG with the world? Send your high-res photo to blogs@lululemon.com and we'll publish a few of our favourites here on the lululemon blog.

Where will you be travelling this summer?

Summer is approaching and everyone has traveling goals, can't wait to soak up the sun, or hop on a plane to see the world. The question is, “what will you be packing?” To us, the answer is a no brainer -- pack your favourite lululemon pieces! Easy to pack, wears well during the day and then you can hit the streets of Venice, Italy or Venice Beach, California for a dusk run to enjoy the view!

Throughout the years we have received emails, postcards and now Facebook pictures and Twitpics of our guests traveling around the world in lululemon pieces.

This month during your travels, share your experience, your destination, your travel stories, people you meet along the way and show us how far lululemon travels through a snap shot of you somewhere in the world.

Join June’s Travelling lululemon photo challenge this month and share your group shots with us.

how do I send you my photo for this challenge?

You can upload your photo to our monthly challenge photo pool on flickr, send it to onlinecommunity@lululemon.com and we’ll add it for you (we won’t publish your email address), @reply us on Twitter, or post it on our Facebook wall!

what will you do with my photo?

We’ll be featuring some of our favourite entries on the lululemon blog. If you don’t want your name or entry to be public, let us know.

Sweat hard, and travel harder!

Dance, sing, floss and travel.

We recently asked our guests on Facebook and Twitter for a little inspiriation for our monthly challenge and the theme that came up with quite of few people was to share the idea of capturing balance in a picture.

This month our monthly challenge is to capture the way you find balance in your life! Do you turn to yoga at the end of the day? Are you the one who breaks out into a dance routine at the corporate office? Or do you spend the weekend photo journaling with friends to capture the moment? We can’t wait to see how you express balance through your photo submission! Show us your balancing act!

Elissa showing how she has balance in her life.

How do I participate in the challenge?
You can upload your photo to our monthly challenge photo pool on flickr, send it to onlinecommunity@lululemon.com and we'll add it for you (we won't publish your email address), or post it on our Facebook wall!

Above: Meet Suzanne! She is our Online Community Manager Carolyn's mum and one of our biggest fans! Suzanne is from the small town of Oliver, BC, which is home to the World's Largest Cherry Pie!

Here on the lululemon web team, many of us are from small towns. We're from places with claims to fame such as the World's Largest Cherry Pie and the Salmon Capital of the World.

For October's monthly photo challenge, we want to meet your tiny towns! Show us your landmarks, your monuments, the roads you run and bike on, your town's yoga studio, or where you have your morning coffee. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

You can either upload your photo our monthly challenge photo pool on flickr or send it to onlinecommunity@lululemon.com and we'll add it for you (we won't publish your email address). If you'd like, add a sentence or two about your small town so we can share your town and why you love it with the world.

Above: Rachel Ross, an ambassador at our Ala Moana store in Hawaii, gets ready for her close up.

You see their pictures all over the lululemon store walls and website. They jump, prance, and pose in the air, on land and in front of the sea. They are the lululemon athletica ambassadors: a group of unique individuals who are rock star athletes, dancers, as well as stand-out yoga and fitness innovators, all of whom are involved in our communities and also embody the lululemon lifestyle and culture.

When I walk into a lululemon store, these pictures inspire me. It makes me want to be a better runner, a more focused yogi, and especially be someone who motivates and contributes to our community. And while the ambassador photographs you see look fabulous and flawless, there’s a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes in order to capture these movers and shakers of the fitness world. My colleague here at lululemon Ala Moana, Fabe, juggled the scheduling of six ambassador photo shoots this summer. From location scouting to logistical nightmares, Fabe and James, the professional photographer we hired for the shoots, tirelessly did their best to make our store’s ambassadors shine.

Fabe and her crew searched high and low for the place that would best embody the ambassador’s strength and spirit. Then there was hair and makeup (a big thank you to stylist Rene), a task usually not a high priority for these athletes who are no stranger to the lululemon manifesto quote: “sweat once a day to regenerate your skin.” A lot of credit also goes to the ambassadors themselves – as they had to endure the sometimes unglamorous tasks that come with a photo shoot, in this case, holding their yoga poses for an insane amount of time so that the photographer could get just the right shot.

So whether you’re walking into a lululemon store, checking out our ambassador photos online, or thinking about becoming an ambassador yourself… don’t forget that these photographs represent the heart and soul of lululemon… the people who drive us to be better educators, stronger athletes, and powerful community members.

While we currently don't have any plans to open a lululemon in Arctic Canada, it's great to know we have at least one fan there if we do!

beauty:

imagination:

peace:

and of course, a sense of fun:

As the collection of inspiring international images grew, my respect for yoga deepened. I found smiles revealed in challenging poses:

serenity swarming city streets:

landscapes enhanced by the yogi or yogini practicing in its beauty:

and the enrollment of others on the yogic path:

147 people from our Facebook community even chose the image below as their favourite from a snapshot of the collection!

I had never tried yoga before coming to lululemon and now I find it hard to go a week without it. Practicing yoga has helped me find peace in the noise that is my life. It has also helped me become a better runner; my breathing is paced allowing me to run longer distances without melting into a panting mess. These photos inspire me to relax my face into a smile when I am in bow pose and encourage me to kick higher...even in my fifth breath. To those who contributed, thank you for sharing your light with our lululemon athletica community!

Namaste.

Our monthly challenge for August on lululemon.com is Spread the Love: leave an inspiring note for others to find.