I am always looking for more ways to fully utilize this yearly bundle of paper and this year, my approach to selecting one included determining (among other things) what wellness goals I actually have. A lot of things were considered on the initial list, but in the end, I narrowed it down to:
- daily water
- daily steps
- good habits
- a personal challenge
Once I figured those out, it came down to determining the best way to track them. For water and daily steps, I landed on this:
See those alternating circles going down the length of each daily column? There's a lot of rhyme and reason right there. There's also some other stuff happening on this page, but we'll talk about that another time. Stay focused!
This method is REALLY simple! The blue circles are for water. The orange circles are for steps. In my case, each blue circle represents 10oz of water. Each orange is 1000 steps. As you can see, they are evenly spaced out over the day, starting not too long after I wake up and culminating not too long before I'm heading to bed. Now, am I ACTUALLY consuming and walking at that pace? Not always, no. However, it does help me see very clearly how far behind I'm falling and helps galvanize me if I'm serious about hitting those goals. Because it is on every single day and visible right next to each appointment, I have a constant gentle reminder (and a way to plan just when I am going to refill my cup or take a quick walk around the building). As with all goals, it's finding ways to plan the accomplishment into your day. Other bonus: they are circles I drew in myself. Super simple to draw (of course), super easy to fill in, and costs nothing more than the dab of ink I used (unlike one-time use stickers).
Now I know a few things about me and one of them is I can get distracted or feel overwhelmed and just not get up and go for that walk. What I ALSO know is that I can't resist a challenge, so I decided the best way I could support myself in pursuing this is by publicly throwing down the gauntlet and inviting others to participate. I immediately knew I wanted to create The Proclaimers Challenge. You remember that song, right? Not sure? Quick refresher:
You're there now, right? So yes: my challenge is to make sure that in a year, I walk 500 miles (and then walk 500 more) for a total of 1000 miles. Of course I needed to track this some way and the Passion Planner has a ton of grid pages in the back, so I drew this:
As you can see, the first 500 miles are drawn in a semi-board game style. The second tracker is more of a spiral:
On the board game, I marked every 10 miles. However, the spiral is so complicated (at first glance) that I wanted to keep myself on track with markers every 5 miles.
You'll also notice a key to the side. I decided as a final element I wanted to give each month its own color. I'm a bit curious if I am more or less active during any particular months and over the next several years I can track this trend and prepare myself to up my activity levels on typically low activity months. It's about long term wellness! Oh, and if you're wondering what the numbers are written into the key color blocks, that's the color code number for the colored pencil I used. Yep, I'm that level of particular, where grabbing the wrong shade of yellow will aggravate me....
Now that I've talked about that challenge, I want to invite you to join me! Each Saturday I will be posting an update on my Instagram. If you would also like to participate, use #proclaimerschallenge2020 and I will spot you and cheer you on! I'd also love to see how you are tracking your 1000 miles. I'm always eager to see a good habit tracker!
These are only a couple of my trackers, though. Come back next week to see how and why I track self care! And don't forget: if you liked this post, sharing is caring!