Off to a Good Start!

 February 3, 2022

Several years ago, my sister got me a Fitbit for Christmas.  Once I got it and made 10,000 steps a day my goal, I was pretty faithful for a good long time.  It might have even been as many as two years where it was incredibly rare that I didn't hit my goal and if I didn't, it wasn't too far off the mark.  I walked late at night, in the rain or in the heat of summer.  I walked by myself or with my daughter or with my then-husband.  I walked when I was tired and I walked when I was sick.  Walk I did, though.  Every day.  But then I hit a rough patch--an understandable one.  After a diagnosis of cancer and the five surgeries that ensued, recovery took me off my schedule and out of my routine.  In between surgeries I'd heal and get back up to speed with my walking, but then I'd be out again for a time when I went in for the next surgery. I got out of the habit and the mindset of making that a priority.  And then I made excuses.  I was happy when I hit 10,000, but not too sad if my count was 7,000.  It was close enough.  At least it wasn't 2,000, right?  There were days when I didn't even wear my Fitbit, but there were even more days when I wore it but never once looked at it.  I knew I wasn't getting in all the steps, and I didn't want the rebuke from my device reminding me of that.

We all have the same amount of time in our day, and how we spend that time shows what we prioritize.  This year on January 1, I decided to do a reset and send that goal all the way back up near the top of my list.  Not the top, mind you--friends, family, work, reading, and writing (thus the much more frequent blog entries this year than in the past few!)--are all some of the priorities that round out my most important, but walking gets to be in the mix too.  In the past few years it was on the list, but it was a long, long way down.  Like, I knew in my head it was on the list, but it was on page fourteen, you know?  The 'priorities' you know you should have, so you write them down, but you never quite get to?  So far this year, however, my should have goal has just become my goal, and I am happy to report that the first month of the year I managed to meet it every day--even when it was cold out and I was tired and I didn't really want to do it.  The routine is becoming a habit once again.