Lights, Camera, Action

Lights, Camera, Action or rather A reason, a goal, a plan!

So you have your reason - you know why you want change in your life. It is a reason that will stick and motivate you to a goal(s).

Onward to a goal - start small, wanna walk 10,000 steps each day? Are you walking 5,000 today or maybe less? Set your goal at 8,000, if you always pass it then up your goal to 10,000.

Let me take a step or two back, no pun intended... Goals are important, not as important as a reason, but if you don't have a goal you don't have a point to which you are going, you have nothing to measure, which means you can't tell if you are making progress.

Let's look at the goal of getting 10,000 steps in a day, say you are at 5,000. A goal of 10,000 is a good goal you are doubling down and putting a very specific goal that you feel you can achieve. Most books or articles you will read on goal setting will tell you, that you are spot on. Well I'm going to disagree with that for now.

As I said in my last post change is simple, but hard the last thing you need is something getting in your way. So looking back at the goal of 10,000 steps we see the main goal which is get more steps, be more active. Let's start with that! My goal I want to be more active!! If you'd rather have a specific goal than set the bar low - how many times will you hear someone say that?! Seriously - set yourself up for success - want to walk more, read more, run more, eat less, complain less... do it slowly, simply, incrementally.

My favorite thing about my step goal is to blow past it by the middle of the day! Why don't I increase my step count you may wonder? Because it doesn't match my real goal which is to be more active and ultimately be healthy. I hate not meeting my step count I feel like I've failed for the day when in fact 8456 is way better than the days I used to get 3000 to 5000 steps.

Take away - Step a goal that even on a "bad" day you think you can reach.

Why? You probably already know but success feels good, it is additive. A goal of 30 minutes of cardio 3 times a week turns into 5 times a week quickly. Let me give you an example. Say I want to get in 15k steps in a day for a week - by setting my goal at 12k first (from 10k) I get used to success - I also start to learn how to fit extra steps in. For example in order for me to get in 15k steps in a day I know I have to have 10k by 5 pm. If I don't I'm not likely to get to 15k by bed time - which in turn means I probably need to walk on my lunch break so that by 3 I have at least 8k steps. Starting to see what I'm getting at?

Your assignment - set a simple goal.

Tomorrow we will talk planning - from there we will get to more of my day to day goals and plan for a healthy lifestyle, including food choices, exercise, etc.