How walking 10,000 steps a day transformed how I set goals

I never enjoyed exercise 'til I discovered this little secret.

Photo by Brian Erickson on Unsplash

I have never been the type of person who enjoys exercise. (Phew, it feels good to get that off my chest).

No matter how hard I try, I always find that something (injuries, weather, appointments, fatigue) interrupts my routine, or that I simply lose interest after about two or three weeks.

I’ve tried running, Pilates, ocean swimming, weights, Yoga, HITT, rock climbing, just going to the gym and trying out random machines—you name it! Despite my best efforts, nothing has ever really stuck.

That is until I found *drum roll please*: walking. Specifically, walking 10,000 steps per day.

(I know, I know, walking barely counts as exercise, right? We can debate that later . . .) Eight weeks ago, I started consistently walking 10,000 steps per day. And I’m still going strong.

Yes, I’m shocked too.

For those of you with active jobs — hospital wards-men, personal trainers, teachers, tradesmen — walking 10,000 steps probably doesn’t sound that impressive. But as someone who works an 8 to 5 office job every day (and used to walk an average of 2,000 to 3,000 daily steps), I’m pretty proud of myself.

Apart from one day where I was sick, and my own wedding day, I haven’t missed a single day of walking (and even on those “skipped” days I got an above-average step count).

So what’s made it stick?

By happy accident, I seem to have uncovered the secret to achieving any goal— not only when it comes to exercise, but in all areas of life. It’s this:

Enjoy 👏 the 👏 process 👏

No bells and whistles, no fancy calendars or apps, no motivational talks or online courses. The secret to getting sustainable, long-term results in anything is simply to enjoy what you do.

Of course, the fact that we don’t enjoy everything that we want to do is where we run into problems. But, there are a few ways you can hack it. Here’s what I’ve learned, broken down into steps:

Step 1: Find an initial motivator that forces you to form a habit

Eight weeks ago, I received an email encouraging employees to register for a six-week ‘10,000 Steps Challenge’ (an annual initiative they run to combat the sedentary nature of office work).

Desperate to find some motivation to exercise, I enthusiastically signed up and was put in a team with four other people. The goal was to accumulate the most amount of steps for the six week period, working as a team.

I’d found my motivator.

Within the first week, I’d accumulated more than 100,000 steps and my team was placed second on the leaderboard. This excited me, so I just kept walking. And walking, and walking. Every day, without fail.

I was squeezing steps into every crack in my schedule: waking up before the sunrise to walk, walking during my lunch break at work, even marching at my standing desk in the office. I was determined, and the healthy competition forced me to achieve, and eventually led me to form a habit.

Practical tip: Accountability and competition are great initial motivators in your journey to forming healthy habits. Find a friend who can be an accountability buddy, join a local competition, or download an accountability app, to help motivate you.

Step 2: Pair your routine with something you enjoy

A few days into the challenge, I began to see that my motivation would soon wane if I didn’t make the process more interesting.

To address this, I challenged myself to walk a different path every day. I then began taking photos and filming the process for my Instagram and YouTube accounts. And when that started to get tedious, I began to pinch plant cuttings from the footpath, to grow at home.

(Can I just say, my garden is now very impressive and I have no regrets).

I also listened to lots of new podcasts, discovered new tracks and albums on Spotify, prayed a bunch, watched YouTube videos occasionally, and smiled at strangers. I sometimes even stopped at the park to try out the swings, or do some meditation.

As an added bonus to all this, I got to know my way around my new neighbourhood very well.

By coupling my walking with activities I enjoyed, I’ve come to crave my daily walks. They became a space where I could meditate, talk to God, learn and create. Throughout this process, a secret I learned to stay motivated is this: Don’t force yourself to do something if it feels like a waste of time.

In every form of exercise I’d ever undertaken before, I’d tried to push through, despite not enjoying it, or wishing I was doing something else instead. This is NOT the way to stay motivated. The way to stay motivated is to make it enjoyable.

Practical tip: make your walking time productive and enjoyable. Find walking-friendly activities you enjoy. Maybe that’s listening to podcasts/music, walking your dog, walking to the grocery store, writing blog posts on your phone (I’ve done this too!). Whatever it is, make a note of it in your calendar or journal—plan it out—to keep yourself excited.

Step 3: Don’t track results, track consistency

The quickest way to lose motivation is to see that you are going backwards. For anyone who’s tried dieting, weight-lifting or other forms of measured exercise, you will know that starving yourself and working hard only to put on a pound is the lamest thing in the history of all things.

Putting in the effort, but seeing yourself going backwards is the best excuse to quit. Ever.

But we don’t want to quit! We want to stay motivated. So how do we do that? The secret: Instead of tracking results or progress, track consistency.

Rather than asking yourself, Did I lose a pound today?, ask yourself Did I show up today? Did I put my runners on and get out the door? And rather than tracking how fast your kilometres are, track how many days you ran consistently and reward yourself for that, instead.

In BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits, he says that the trick to creating long-term change in your life is to break everything down into the tiniest of habits — habits that can be executed consistently (i.e. every day).

Instead of focussing on the seemingly insurmountable marathon, you’re training for, breaking the activity down into the smallest possible component is much more sustainable. Making your goal to “Run 100 metres” or “Put on running shoes” is something you can tick off your list every day. And as the theory goes, once you run 100 metres, you’re likely to run a few kilometres, simply because you’ve already started.

When I was walking, I wasn’t tracking my time, calories or weight/body composition, despite having goals to improve my fitness and physique. The only thing I was counting was how many steps I did, and how consistently. If I didn’t make exactly 10,000 that day, I’d make up the rest the next day, and so on. But I still had to walk every day.

Importantly, 10,000 steps was a realistic goal. I wasn’t aiming to run 10 kilometres each day. Walking 10,000 steps is something nearly anyone can do. It’s doing it consistently that was the real challenge for me.

Practical tip: break down your big goals into smaller steps that you can tick off your to-do list every single day. Don’t worry about what the scales or the stopwatch says; only worry about showing up. Your body will do the rest.

So I guess the question is, did my team win the 10,000 step challenge?

*Drum roll*

No . . . but we came in second place! (The winning team happened to consist of marathon runners, so they did have a bit of an advantage, to say the least).

The fact that we came second-place was awesome, but the real prize was being able to look back on my calendar and feel a sense of pride in my achievements. I’d showed up for myself; I’d done something I never thought I’d be able to do so consistently.

That feeling of pride and accomplishment is simply addictive. And now that I’ve felt it, all I want to do is keep walking! It’s created this interesting snowball effect, and I’m absolutely stoked!

Until next time,