When The Goal Gets Harder

Week two of compounding steps and I’m feeling a little less philosophical than last week (although I’ve just realised this will be coming out in week three, just to confuse you!).

I’m still enjoying it but it’s 6.04pm as I write this, I only have 7847 of 11,286 steps today. I’m hungry and I want to get this blog done. I went to a wool shop today and bought some beautiful yarn to make a cardi to go with the as-yet-unfinished dress which I’m wearing to a wedding in two-ish weeks. So I’m itching to get going with that! Fitting in another 3,439 steps just feels like a burden right now.

But it will get done.

The embroidery and yarn I can’t stop thinking about!!

What it might be worth talking about then, is:

The Ways In Which I Made This Goal Absolutely Achievable.

There are lots of schools of thought on goal setting, entire genres of books about how to set a goal and achieve it. I read Atomic Habits recently and it’s on my list to write a blog for you but this is more me talking, human to human, and honestly, probably more lazy, anxious, overthinking human to human.

I haven’t always been a doer. For a lot of my life I was a freezer. As in fight, flight, freeze mode. I spend a lot of my life in the freezer section - if I wasn’t working, or out drinking with my mates then I was in bed. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was a trauma response and intimately linked with depression.

I would have given anything to just get out of that at the time, to just do things, but doing things wasn’t available to me. It’s like I thought that ✨doing things✨ was for other people and just absolutely nothing to do with me.

Freezer me tried her best. She kept busy with knitting (building skills which ultimately led her here via the medium of a successful business), she tried yoga, volunteered with old folks and asked the GP for help many times (sometimes that was even successful) but ultimately it wasn’t until I discovered exercise that anything shifted.

Becoming an Exerciser

I’ve no doubt that the actual exercise helped, of course, but what I actually did was sign up to a year long challenge to see how fit I could get. it encompassed weight lifting, nutrition and mindset and the deciding on a challenge and following through - imperfectly - is the thing that changed my life.

I set out to do a thing and I did a thing.

A Fresh Start

The year started, as they usually do, in January and I was all ready to go on the 1st. Bought some trainers, signed into the portal, had my notebook ready and the bloke that was running it simply said… ‘hi, welcome, we’re not starting yet, relax’.

I was… not happy! I had been absolutely raring to go. Gonna give it 100%! Do absolutely every single thing right and early and everything would be happy ever after. But this guy was used to the freezers, he was used to people who had been through every diet imaginable and they’d all ‘worked’ until they didn’t. He knew we were ready to go at this full throttle until one tiny thing knocked us off and we’d be done for the entire year.

I didn’t like it, but that initial stand off was so incredibly important to understanding that if something is going to work then it needs to be at a pace that I can sustain.

So that’s why I chose my rules for this challenge - simply because I want to succeed!

I’m not here to make myself feel shit. I’m here to get moving, get outside and follow through on the promises I make to myself.

My Compounding Steps Rules:

1. 10,000 steps on the first day and increase by 1% each day for 30 days.

2. Keep a track of the steps I do.

   • I’ve got a note of how many steps I need to do each day, I tick that off and any extra get added to the ‘bank’.

3. Make the minimum every day unless I can’t.

   • Be honest with myself if I can’t - is it my knees or is it that I can’t be bothered?

   • If I can’t then I have built a ‘bank’ of extra steps which I can borrow from.

4. Enjoy the steps.

   • Make them part of the everyday, add in little walks here or there and take the longer route but also, romanticise it! Get out into beautiful spaces, no headphones and be fully present there.

5. Don’t keep adding rules.

   • I have a tendency to overthink things because my brain loves to keep things interesting - see adding compounding steps rather than just saying 10,000 a day and calling it good.

   • I’ve thought about extending the challenge, and I probably will, but 30 days is when this bit finishes and that will be the success. Then the rest can come later.

Goal setting and building better habits are integral parts of personal finance which we’ll come back to again and again. I am so grateful that I learned how to set acheivable goals so that I can succeed even though I’m imperfect and I aim to pass that along to you.

Sign up to the newsletter if you’re a goal-setter, an imperfect person, a freezer or none of the above.

Love Eleanor. xxx