Maybe you’re like me and have (or had) too many baby steps you were trying to tackle at once. In my case, because they were in different areas (daily steps, water intake, eating more regularly), I thought I would have no problem making incremental adjustments in each of these areas.
Tuh. (Insert hard eye roll here.)
I was ahem a wee bit ambitious. My ingrained bad habits and laziness were overriding the most earnest of my intentions. Notice I said intentions. Without action, intentions are just hopes and wishes. As much as it sounds like an after school special, I realized I needed to be more deliberate in my actions in order to make things happen.
That means I decided I needed to consciously think in eery decision about meeting my daily step goal of 5,000 steps. I work a desk job with fairly traditional hours, and if I see I haven’t hit 2,000 steps by lunchtime, I make a point to get up and do a couple of figure-8 laps around the bathroom lobby (one lap gets me about 140 steps). In five minutes I can get at least three laps in without even thinking about it. Get home and know I’m not going out anymore but am still short of my step goal? Time to jog or step in place. If I’ve been deliberate all day, I shouldn’t be that far off. If I haven’t, I have only myself to blame.
With this (newly) adopted attitude, there’s only been one day since December 1 that I haven’t met my step goal. I’ve even been thinking of increasing it to 5500. (Though I may have just jinxed myself.)
You may have read to this point and be thinking that while this sounds good, that would not work for you at all. That’s ok. Find what works for you. Maybe you can wake up a few minutes earlier and get your steps in. Perhaps you can park a little further away from buildings instead of searching for that close parking spot. Or when you’re done reading this, instead of clicking to your next favorite site, go on to your grocery store’s website and order your groceries instead of putting it off. It will be one thing off your list and a baby step closer to your goal.
It feels so good. Try it and see.