by Caroline Leach | Dec 6, 2015 | Learning, Work/Life
19 days into my green day challenge, what have I learned?
Here are 5 lessons that apply not only to my goal of taking 10,000 steps every day, but also to any goal worth pursuing.
- Plan ahead. Today is Sunday, so I’m planning the week ahead. As I review the calendar, I’m mapping out when and where I’ll exercise. This week I’m traveling, so my exercise gear is the first thing I pack.
I’m also thinking about the many small ways I can rack up steps – take the stairs, walk around at the airport, pace in my office while preparing for a meeting, stroll around the floor and say hello to colleagues.
- Get steps in early in the day. This is similar to “eating a frog” – or doing the most difficult project of the day early on.
Taking 10,000 steps isn’t hard, but as the day wears on and demands stack up, it’s more challenging to work in exercise time.
Since it’s Sunday I decided to treat myself to a morning workout at the beach. I caught up on some reading on the treadmill (in the picture above), and it will be a green day before lunch.
- Do whatever it takes. Some days, despite the best planning, it’s not possible to get the steps and the big projects done in the morning.
Because I’ve committed to this challenge, my decision isn’t about whether or not I’ll take the necessary steps. It’s about how I’ll get them in.
Sometimes that means a late-night walk with my husband in the rain – after I’ve already spent an hour on the treadmill.
- The progress principle fuels other goals. The pass/fail nature of my green-day challenge means I only have to focus on the quantity of my efforts, not the quality.
There’s no value judgement to how well I carried out my green-day tasks. All that matters is the yes/no aspect of whether I took the steps or not.
The only fear of failure involved is if I don’t take action. That action creates momentum and a feeling of accomplishment. It frees up energy and bandwidth to focus on other, more challenging goals.
- Make it fun. On Friday when my husband picked me up from the airport, we headed to a nearby beach city for dinner.
We spent a half hour strolling along The Strand, enjoying the beautiful sunset (pictured below) and catching up with each other.
My Fitbit buzzed with 10,000 steps as we were walking into Love and Salt for dinner. Reaching one goal made the meal all the more enjoyable.
While I was traveling and using the hotel fitness center, I streamed episodes of a favorite show on my iPad. The time flew by.
The best part of my green days?
By New Year’s Day 2016, I’ll have racked up 45 green days.
And instead of setting a goal to start exercising, I’ll be able to pursue a far more interesting goal.
by Caroline Leach | Nov 28, 2015 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
It’s crunch time.
College apps for many California schools are due on Nov. 30. If you have a high school senior, as I do, this makes for an interesting Thanksgiving weekend.
Thankfully, the University of California and California State University apps are done. Now it’s on to the other schools with a variety of submission dates.
But all of the heavy lifting is done. The college visits. The standardized tests. Three years of academic high school courses. Extracurriculars. Volunteering. Work experience.
And that was all on my daughter’s part. For my part, it’s been encouraging, advising and a lot of driving. Okay, and a little nagging – no, actually, a lot – along the way.
As part of my learning project, what have I learned through this process?
Where you go to school does not define you. Opportunities are available wherever you are. You just have to look for them.
This applies in life; not just in college. Wherever you are today, there are opportunities. As Thomas Edison said, however, they may be disguised as hard work.
- Put in the work. The real work happens every day. It involves having a vision for your life, setting goals and working toward them every day.
Making consistent progress toward goals is what makes people happy. Read more about how that applies to work in Teresa Amabile‘s The Progress Principle.
- Follow the directions, and push the boundaries. A lot of school and life consists of following directions. That’s especially important in navigating any big bureaucracy.
But it’s also important to learn how you can push the boundaries in an ethical way, to make your own unique contribution.
In college applications, this is where the essays become so important. Rather than simply being a number with a GPA and SAT scores, your teen can show their unique approach to life and learning.
In life, it’s constantly asking how you could do things better. What would delight your family, your colleagues and your customers? What would delight you?
- Don’t be afraid to make a change. Our culture places a huge premium on tenacity and perseverance. I’m one of the biggest adherents. There’s rarely a problem that can’t be solved through intense effort.
Yet there’s also wisdom in knowing when to cut your losses and make a change. I learned this when I ended up at the wrong college for me.
Instead of hunkering down and trying to make it work, I transferred to another school. I ended up in a better place for me. And it made all the difference.
(That’s one of my beloved alma maters, UCLA, pictured above. It feels only slightly ironic to be writing this on the day when my two alma maters are facing off in college football.)
This change principle can apply to anything in life – a career, an exercise program or a volunteer activity.
This blog started out as a way to explore the future of corporate communications. Many changes in my life this year – both personal and professional – have altered my course.
This blog has evolved. It’s still evolving. Just as life is constantly doing the same.
It’s part of finding the way to the future – just as college serves the same exploratory purpose. The next posts are still to be written.
What will they hold?
by Caroline Leach | Nov 27, 2015 | Learning, Work/Life
Game on for a “green day” challenge.
No, not the rock band.
Between now and the end of the year, I challenged myself to make every day what I call a Fitbit “green day.”
It means turning 4 key metrics green on my tracker every day – 10,000 steps, 5 miles, 30 active minutes and 2,000 calories burned.
It’s part of the “daily dozen” actions I take every day, loosely related to my learning project.
Why? Because exercise changes your brain, as Gretchen Reynolds reports in Does Exercise Really Make Us Smarter?
The mind-body connection keeps your brain in shape and ready to learn – not to mention the myriad of other benefits to health and happiness.
What helps me go green every day?
- Plan ahead. When I’m planning my day, I decide in advance when I’ll exercise. If I’m traveling, I pack my exercise gear and hit the fitness center.
- Get steps in early. Being active early in the day builds momentum. It doesn’t necessarily mean a morning workout, although that helps. It means standing instead of sitting. It means pacing instead of standing.
- Take the stairs. As a habit, I take the stairs instead of the elevator if I’m going up or down fewer than 4 floors. This started as a “microresolution” inspired by Caroline Arnold‘s Small Move, Big Change.
- Take a walking break. If my meetings are mostly in my office rather than on another floor or in another building, I walk a lap or two around the floor every few hours. This has the added benefit of being a “managing while wandering around” exercise and connecting with colleagues.
- Get a dog. A walking buddy is always mind with our rescue dog, Kincaid. His enthusiasm pulls me up hills and takes me down paths I might never have discovered on my own.
- Find a buddy. My husband exercises with me and motivates me when I still have a few thousand steps to get to green late in the day. After I spent an hour on the treadmill last week and was still short of 10,000 steps, he went walking with me (in the rain, no less) to get past the finish line for the day.
And if you’re having one of those days where nothing feels like it’s going right, take a walk. Put one foot in front of the other. Rack up steps.
There’s an amazing ability to gain new perspective and solve problems while you’re taking a walk.
So have a green day. And another. And another.
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