Go for a walk

Do you want to start exercising? I hope you do. There has been so much research done about how beneficial a consistent exercise regiment can be, not just for physical health but also mental health! I believe it is one of the most important things we can do to have a more fulfilling and enjoyable life! Unfortunately, exercise is being gatekept. "Join a gym, download my new training app, become part of this exclusive running club!". It seems like in order to "exercise" you have to first pass a qualifications test. We have forgotten about walking. Walking can be one of the most fulfilling forms of exercise and, best of all, it is free and available to almost everyone.

In the month of January I walked over 450,000 steps. I wanted to set a step goal for myself of 13,000 daily steps in order to have consistent work to do everyday. In the past I had taken my rest days from the gym as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. When I got back to the gym the following day, I was stiff and unmotivated. I had broken the cycle of work and my body was resisting starting back up. This year I wanted to make sure that even if it was something as simple as a 20 minute walk, I was doing some form of physical activity everyday. I hit my daily step goal of 13,000 steps (and even went over on some days) every day in the month of January, and it was the best thing I could have done!

I didn't lose any weight, I didn't refine my lifting technique or get any stronger directly from my walking, but I gained something more valuable. I gained a connection to discipline that I had lost towards the end of 2022. It isn't incredibly strenuous, but the act of walking to 13,000 steps a day flies in the face of the laziest parts of yourself. I found myself trying to excuse missing the step goal because: "walking is so low impact, it isn't going to make any difference". I had gotten so lazy that my laziness was manifesting itself by telling me the exercise wasn't hard enough! It was in these moments when I was walking back and forth in my living room reaching for those last few steps that I reengaged with discipline. It wasn't about how difficult walking was, it was about setting a goal and following through with that goal when I really didn't want to. Practicing that discipline with something as low impact as a slow walk around my house allowed me to be more skilled when I needed to be disciplined in tougher areas of my life! Getting back to being a competitive powerlifter, growing my business by improving the lives of others, and being a loving spouse are all harder tasks than taking a walk, but they are made more doable by the discipline that I had on hand because I refused to miss my daily step goal!

Go for a walk! It doesn't have to be long or hard, it can be 5 minutes around your neighborhood. Get out there and step. Then do it again tomorrow. Make the commitment to something physical. Walking is one of the most available forms of exercise we have,

and it is waiting for you. Make a commitment either to time or steps and do that thing NO MATTER WHAT! You will gain so much more than physical results.