For me, this idea came from reading one of Julie Morgenstern‘s organizing books. I read this a long time ago so I don’t remember which book it was and the details may be fuzzy but the spirit is there, so let’s roll with it.
From what I recall, one of her clients was struggling to keep her shoes organized. She was always kicking them off next to her bed and then she would get annoyed with the pile of shoes that would accumulate there.
The complicated solution would be to train herself to put her shoes elsewhere or maybe to create a habit of returning her shoes to the front closet each morning. Both of those solutions are valid but they will take time and effort and probably a lot of experimenting.
Julie Morgenstern, however, had a much more direct solution.
She suggested putting a shoe rack next to the bed so her client’s shoes could be easily tidied and organized.
Now, there could be lots of reasons why either of the first two solutions might be better overall but you can’t beat the shoe rack when it comes to an easy and efficient solution to the shoe pile, can you?
It may not be a perfect solution, it may not be a forever solution, but it does address the immediate problem (messy shoe pile) without requiring a lot of effort and it lets the client choose where she wants to put her energy right now – creating a tidy corner or making changes to her behaviour.
Ultimately, she may want to change her behaviour but the shoe rack won’t prevent that. In fact, if she’s not being mean to herself about the messy shoe pile, she will probably have more energy to apply to behaviour change.*
When it comes to adding new practices to our lives or adjusting current practices, we tend to default to a behaviour change type of solution when often a shoe rack type of solution would do.
I think it’s worth trying some simple, direct solutions to our challenges first, even if it’s just to free up some energy for other changes and solutions we know we’ll want to try later.
So, if you are always forgetting to bring your water bottle to the basement when you do your workout – put a safe container of water and some clean glasses in your workout space.
If you have trouble making yourself do your stretches each evening, arrange a call with a friend and stretch while you chat. Your stretches might not be as deep but they’ll be done.
If, like me, you find that having your equipment in the basement prevents you from using it, consider moving it to a space in your house that feels easier for you.
If you keep your journal on your desk but you find it hard to sit there and write at the end of the day can you move your journal to your bedside table? Or keep a separate notebook there? Or use the voice notes on your phone? Or make jot notes whenever you can and do more detailed journaling at a time that feels easier? Can you change the time that you journal?
There is nothing wrong with choosing a direct solution if one is available.
Our practices are about our well-being, our fitness, our peace of mind, they aren’t about checking off boxes on an imaginary list of perfact behaviours.
There are lots of ways for us to move towards the lives we want, and it’s ok for at least some of those ways to be really straightforward.
So, Team, I’d like to invite you to consider what sorts of simple solutions might be available to help you address your challenges.
Or to put it another way, if you are faint a challenge, consider asking yourself if a shoe rack will help.
As always, here’s your gold star for your efforts today. As you can tell, today’s star is absolutely delighted with you and with your hard work.
And whether you are working on small solutions, big solutions, or anything in between, please remember that your efforts matter and so do you.
Please be kind to yourself out there.
Go Team Us!
I thought it was time for another happy star. 🙂 image description: a drawing of a cartoonish gold star with bright eyes and a big smile. The star is standing on a purple swing with two points of the star folding around the ropes of the swing like hands. The background of the image is coloured bright blue.
* If you pick a small solution for now with the idea that you will take on the behaviour change over time, please consider picking a time (or several times!) in the next few months to check in with yourself. It’s not exactly the same thing but I often choose a stopgap solution or workaround when I am pressed for time and then realize months later that I never stopped to develop an actual solution. Choosing a check-in time will reduce the chances of you being stuck with a temporary solution for longer than you mean to be.
I have been experimenting with when and how to write different things, I have experimented with different ways to approach my volunteer work, I have given a lot of thought to how ELSE my Go Team ideas might apply in my life, and I have experimented with my well-being practices.
Here are some of the things that have come up for me so far and some questions I am pondering at the moment.
As soon as I mention pondering, I gotta break out a Pinky and the Brain GIF. Image description: a GIF from the cartoon Pinky and the Brain in which The Brain (a short white mouse with an oversized head) is asking Pinky (a tall skinny mouse who looks kind of goofy) ‘Are you pondering what I’m pondering?’ The mice are in a homey setting within a green cage in a laboratory. This question always came up in episodes of this show when The Brain, who was supposed to be a genius, had hatched a plan to take over the world and Pinky, who was rather silly, would respond with nonsense.
My medal from the Salem Witch Trials walking challenge. The medal is a black rectangle is kind of like a wrought iron gate along the top and sides with four points along the bottom line. The medal is decorated with a crescent moon, a sun, a crow on a branch and a bat hanging from a different branch. Then there is text that reads ‘The Salem Witch Trial Virtual Challenge’ The words ‘Salem Witch’ are in green and the lettering is ornate and kind of spooky. It is attached to a green ribbon with decorated with stereotypical ‘witchy’ items like beetles, moths, crystals, a dousing rod, and a fly agaric mushroom and a purple banner that reads ‘Make Every Mile Count.’
It’s really fun to have a tangible, obvious, and related reward for my efforts.
While I am very used to activities in which the effort is its own reward or ones in which I decide on my own ‘prize’ that often has nothing to do with the activities itself but this is different.
While I set my timeframe, the distance and the reward were both set by someone else and I enjoy the feeling of meeting some sort of standard (even a loose one) and getting a medal as a result.
Now, let me be clear – I am in no way treating this like a medal that I won. I know I wasn’t actually racing. I didn’t have any competitors except myself and my time was snail-paced but the medal does remind me that I made a choice to do a program and I completed it.
The fact that I really like how the medal looks is also a bonus.
My feelings about this medal – and the related challenge – are really interesting to me and I am definitely going to explore more tangible and related rewards for my other fitness experiments this year.
And this is where the January experimenting comes in:
I decided to experiment with a longer challenge so I signed up for a 2026 challenge with the same company and, like with the shorter challenge, the fact that I can see each day adding up is giving me a little extra push to move more daily.
BUT it will take all year to earn my medal so I’m going to need to invent some more immediate (and related) awards for myself to earn on a regular basis.
Question: What kinds of rewards will feel more directly related to my fitness practices?
Imperfect Practices
Several of my Go Team 2026 posts have been a bit of a thought experiment for me as I figure out whether I am regularly applying these ideas to my life/practices and how ELSE I might want to apply them.
My Sunday post this week is an excellent example of that experimentation.
That post Done Beats Perfect is about getting so caught up in doing things right that I end up not doing them at all has really helped me tune into something about myself.
I have ‘discovered’ this fact many times in many different contexts but each time I rediscover it, I find a new layer.
I spend too much time trying to figure things out before doing them.
For example:
My ADHD brain is convinced that there is value in waiting to start work on my core because I wouldn’t want to waste time on some practice or program that doesn’t work.
So, it kind of shelves the project of improving my core while awaiting more information BUT it keeps the thought in rotation so it FEELS like I am working on it all the time even though I am not actually doing any work.
But since it has been on my mind for ages, I do get the bonus (annoying) feeling that I am not getting any results for my hard work.
So, a lot of time passes, I don’t end up finding the right system for strengthening my core AND I don’t actually work on a less than perfect system AND nothing changes AND I feel frustrated with myself.
This is all kind of subconscious and I see the illogical nature of this process when I consciously consider it.
But until it occurs to me to bring the thought forward I just have this annoying contradictory situation in which something is sort of on my mind, time is passing, there’s a feeling of effort but no results, but I also know that I am not actually working on that yet.
It’s a bit like when I sit down to write but I can’t make the words string together at the moment so I sit at my desk and putter around at all kinds of distractions. I feel like I am working on it and getting nowhere but there is actually no work taking place.
In that situation, I need to become aware that I am doing that (again!) and remind myself that the only thing that gets my writing done is putting words on the page and then moving them around. I have to coax myself to stick with it past the initial pain of dealing with an ambiguous situation and trust that if I go through the tried-and-true procedure, the work will get done.
Since I know that completing an imperfect workout or an imperfect practice will be automatically superior to a perfect one that never actually gets done, I need to identify a tried-and-true procedure that I can trust to get my workouts/practices done.
I am going to work on the following questions and develop an experiment based on my answers:
Questions: What procedures can I use to make it easier to do an imperfect workout instead of waiting for a perfect one to arrive?How can I make myself conscious of being stuck in the ‘waiting for more info’ loop?
My plan to connect my drawing to my evening yoga has resulted in me avoiding my yoga because I couldn’t wrap my mind around drawing at that point.
I know that the main reason I didn’t draw was because I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to draw each evening. Frustratingly, in my post about this experiment I actually said that I needed to pick something to draw or I probably wouldn’t do it.
Alas, I forgot all about that aspect of things then just tried to wing it and ended up (temporarily) sinking my yoga practice along with my plan to draw.
So, for now, I am going back to committing to evening yoga and, if I have the energy, I will do a drawing on an index card but the drawing is a bonus not a dealbreaker.
And I am going to consider the following questions and have an answer to experiment with by Wednesday evening:
Questions: What kinds of drawing would be fun and relaxing for me to do each evening? How can I make the process of drawing easier to start?
Row Row Row… my living room?
This experiment is less than two days old but after hearing me wonder aloud if moving my rowing machine from the basement to the living room would make it more likely that I would use it, my husband volunteered to move it for me.
As soon as it was in the living room, rowing felt more like a thing I *could* do instead of a thing ‘I need to get back to’ and now that the living room experiment was underway, I decided to try for 5 minutes of rowing each day for the next week.
I know that’s a small amount but I wanted it to feel easy and I can definitely fit in 5 minutes a day for a week and then review.
So, on Monday morning, I planned to row for 5 minutes but ended up rowing for 15 minutes while watching a video about setting up an artist’s notebook. and it really felt great.
That doesn’t mean that I am changing my experiment though. I am going to stick to the 5 minute plan with the option of doing more but with zero pressure to do so.
Now I am just playing around with the when:
Question: Is it easier to have a set time to row or to just do it when it makes sense on a given day?
Overall, I’m enjoying the experiment approach and I am planning to continue into February.
Have you been doing any experiments with your practices and habits in January? How are things going?
I decided to draw my own calendars this year. This one is above my desk and will have a different robot for each month. Image description: a happy square-headed, rectangular-bodied robot drawn in blue ink. She is holding a sign that says ‘Real Snow Please!’ in one hand and she is holding a star in the other. She is standing on a curved line that is supposed to represent snow on the ground and there are dots in the background to represent snow falling. Text beneath her reads ‘January’ and there are two snowflakes and two horizontal arrows pointing to the word.
Because of the combination of extreme cold and ice build-up at a major power plant over the weekend, people in NL were asked to minimize our power usage to avoid blackouts.
And that led to me asking myself things like, ‘Is it better to type this on my phone or use my desktop computer?’* and ‘Does it take more power to run the slow cooker or to heat the oven?’, you know, questions about how to allocate our household energy in a responsible way. It really made me pay attention to all of the electrical power-related decisions I unconsciously make in a given day.
And THAT led me to think about how I allocate my personal energy at any given time and wonder about the unconscious choices I am making about how to spend my energy on a regular basis.
Because even though Taekwondo has taught me to ‘Look where you’re striking’ because your power (energy) is directed towards what you are focusing on, I often forget that the lesson extends beyond TKD class.*
Yes, I have these kinds of strings of somewhat-related thoughts on the regular. Is it ADHD? Is it Being Christine? Who knows? It keeps things interesting though.
I get that we don’t always get to choose where to put our energy and/or that we have competing priorities but it’s worthwhile to think about any energy choices we happen to have at the moment.
So, Team, I invite you to consider the following questions:
What kinds of energy do you have available for your current practices?
When is that energy available?
Are there things you can do in advance so when practice time comes you can spend energy on your practices instead of on preparing for your practices?
Are you wasting energy (or sapping your energy) by being mean to yourself when you could spend that energy on self-kindness (which builds energy!) or on being relatively neutral while you putter through your practices?
I know these are relative easy questions to ask but even the most complicated process has to start somewhere.
Having a look at where your energy goes and how you can make small shifts to save/generate good energy is a great way to help yourself move toward the life you want.
And, as always, here is your gold star for your efforts today.
Whether you are asking yourself energy questions, figuring out where you energy goes/has gone, or doing helpful things utterly unrelated to examining your energy, I wish you ease.
Be kind to yourselves out there, please.
PS – If you are spending a lot of time worrying about the situation in Minnesota but can’t figure out how to put that particular energy to positive use then visiting Stand With Minnesota is a good place to start.
A small painting of a shiny gold star that takes up about two thirds of the page. I started the drawing a bit too close to the bottom of the page so the left bottom point is just off the page. After drawing the star, I drew several star outlines outside the original star, each one larger than the next. Each outline extends beyond the page so the result is angled stripes between the star and the edge of the paper. The stripes are mostly in a pattern – black, white, gold, black, white, gold, etc. the painting is outlined with black lines at the edges.
*An hour or so after posting I realized that I hadn’t finished this thought. My quandary was whether it took more energy to use my computer for a short time or to recharge my phone sooner than normal because I was using it more. I do actually realize that using my unplugged iPhone is not using household power in the moment – ha!
I spent a lot of time trying to draw today’s star.
I started drawing a background last night, creating something with circles of different colours but I couldn’t seem to bring it together – it just looked like random circles. So, I partially covered it with black and was trying to cover the remaining parts with white to make a striped pattern but it just came out looking weird. I actually liked the effect but it didn’t work as the background for a star.
So I did a new one this morning and even after adding the star I couldn’t get this one to look the way I wanted either. It looked fine but it wasn’t quite right so I started tinkering with it, adding bits of gold here and there and trying to figure out what I needed in order to make the drawing work.
And, in the course of tinkering, I realized a few things:
I was running out of time to write today
The star is only part of my project and I can’t spend all my time on just that part
Done beats perfect every time and I can just declare myself done.
So, I promptly decided that my drawing was done and it was time to write.
My writing will also be imperfect but I’m just going to live with that, too.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Because Done Beats Perfect works just as well for your practices as it does for my drawing (and writing.)
You can do what you can and declare your imperfect practice done for the day.
I have spent an awful a lot of time in my life not doing things at all because I didn’t have time/energy/information to do them right – whatever “right” meant for me in that moment.
When it came to a workout or a well-being practice, “right” usually meant exactly as I had planned or exactly as I had been instructed. If I didn’t have enough time or if I couldn’t do one of the exercises, I wouldn’t do any of them because that would be doing them wrong or taking the easy way out.
And somehow my brain convinced me that if I couldn’t do it “right” then it was better not to exercise/journal/meditate at all
Which is, of course, complete crap
I’m not a surgeon or a pilot, my practices were never precision tasks.
In fact, I have always had a very, very, very, very wide range of good enough. I didn’t even to get within shouting distance of perfect.
And that’s why, now that I am more aware of that thinking trap, I spend a lot of my time reminding myself that Done Beats Perfect.
(In fact, for the sake of catchiness, I usually say Done Beats Perfect Every Time but I do know that there are exceptions!)
Yes, there are definitely procedures and safety protocols and proper form for various exercises and practices and you may need to take those into account.
But even including those things you will still have a wide range of ‘good enough’ for any practice you are undertaking.
And a work out that is done imperfectly is much more useful that a workout you didn’t do at all.*
If today’s workout only includes 20 squats instead of 30 or if you only journal for 5 mins instead of 15 or if you can’t face meditation and you colour instead, you are still better off than if you skipped your practice entirely.
To summarize: Do it imperfectly. Declare yourself done. Get on with your day.
So, Team, today I would like to invite you to join me in imperfection in our practices (and our drawing, our writing, and our lives in general.)
Very few things need to be done perfectly and we can really benefit from the things we do imperfectly.
Or to be short and snappy – Done Beats Perfect. Every Time.
It’s really worth giving imperfection a try.
And in celebration of our imperfect efforts, I offer you this imperfect gold star.
Go Team Us!
A small imperfect painting of a gold star. I’m not putting myself down but, for reasons explained in the text, I haven’t tidied up this painting and I haven’t added some finishing touches. I don’t dislike it but it doesn’t feel quite ready to share. Image description: a small painting of a gold star with obvious, slightly swirly brush strokes against a black background that is divided into horizontal stripes by gold lines. Every second stripe is filled with irregularly-sized gold dots/shapes and the drawing is trimmed in gold lines that are somewhat uneven in colour and shape.
* If you find yourself avoiding or adapting your practices again and again, it may signal that you need to change your plans over all. Or if you are mostly ok with your plan but you have to change it fairly regularly, you may want to adjust your expectations a little so you don’t get stressed out about your results.
Your new habits and practices will be stronger if they are built on reality rather than on an attempt at perfection.
Some days are going to be challenging, some days are going to go sideways, some days you’ll be sick, or you’ll have an injury, sometimes you’ll sleep so poorly that it will feel like your ADHD meds aren’t working at all and you’ll feel like you are dragging yourself through mud just to get your basic tasks done.*
When those things happen, please give yourself a break.
That may mean doing your practice without your usual enthusiasm, it may mean modifying your practice or doing the bare minimum, it may mean opting out of your practice entirely and it definitely means being kind to yourself about the whole thing.
If today is too complicated, too hard, or too unmedicated-feeling, practicing self-compassion is the only sensible way forward.
In case the specificity of that last example didn’t give me away, I didn’t sleep well last night and I feel unmedicated and I have been dragging myself through metaphorical mud to do necessary tasks.
At first, I was trying to write the post I had planned but when I couldn’t get my ideas to weave together I decided to take the advice I would give to someone else:
Give Yourself A Break
And I did.
So, as so often happens, this post is not just advice for you – it’s also advice for me.
I hope I’m being a good example of how to dial things back on more challenging days.
As always, here is your gold star for your efforts today. Those efforts may be working towards your new practice or they may be directed towards giving yourself a break and practising self-kindness.
Either way, you get a gold star for your hard work.
Go Team Us!
A drawing of a large shiny gold star with black trim. The background of the image has been divided into 8 triangular sections that meet in a point behind the star. The sections are coloured in purple, blue, orange, and green – one section of a lighter shade and one of a darker one for each colour. Each section is decorated with gold dots outlined in black. Each section is divided by a black line.
Today, I would like to remind you that you have already succeeded at lots of things in your life and that you can borrow from those successes to fuel your current efforts.
Please note: There are a LOT of different ways to succeed. You can follow your initial plans, you can follow a modified plan, you can change your mind and pick a different goal (and a different plan), and you can choose your own definition of success along the way. The goal here is for you to move closer to the life you want to live and your understanding of how to get there is going to change and expand as you proceed.
Ok, with that note in mind, let’s carry on…
So, you have succeed at all kinds of things throughout your life.
Some of those things were HUGE and some were small but they all took effort on your part.
Your success depended on you making plans, figuring things out, adapting to new circumstances, adjusting your plans, taking a break, starting again, getting help, dealing with various levels of motivation, dealing with interruptions, and, basically, developing a wide range of new skills.
Even if your previous successes were in a whole different area of your life, you can apply the skills you learned to your current practices.
Imagine, for example, that you once learned how to bake cookies and now you are pretty good at whipping out a delicious batch of shortbread at a moment’s notice.
On the surface, your shortbread success may seem like it has nothing to do with your current attempts at building a yoga practice but when you look at baking in terms of skills, there are all kinds of parallels.
Before you made that first batch of shortbread, you did some research and picked out which recipe seemed most doable…kind of like how you could do some research on different types (and teaching styles) of yoga and figure out which one resonates with you.
And when you shopped for ingredients, you probably sought other people’s advice at first and then developed your own preferences over time…just like you could do with yoga.
And you probably took things very slowly and paid very close attention at first but, over time, as you learned how the ingredients came together, you could relax and enjoy the process more. Doesn’t that sound a bit like how you first struggle to follow yoga instructors and then learn to trust your body and move in the way you need to move?
Your first batch of shortbread might have turned out pretty good but I’ll bet that your most recent batch is way better. I’ll bet you still celebrated and enjoyed those early batches though. You didn’t wait until you had your baking perfected before having a cookie and sharing them with others. You can also enjoy your early yoga practices now and enjoy future sessions even more.
I’ll also bet that all of your batches didn’t turn out perfectly. And I’m sure that you have had to substitute ingredients, you’ve had to make a batch in advance and freeze them, you’ve had to keep a roll of cookie dough in the fridge because you didn’t have time to do the baking part in the moment, and you have probably cut them into different shapes, added different decorations, tried some new things, all without being hard on yourself about your skills as a baker.
Just as all of those things can be part of being a shortbread baker with competing priorities in their life, making changes, adapting your movements, trying new things, and working in short bursts of time can all be part of developing your yoga practice.
Your skills as a baker have actually taught you a lot about how to add yoga into your life and if you consciously apply those skills, your baking success can help support you as you learn to practice yoga regularly.
And, of course, that was just one example.
You have been successful at hundreds of things during your lifetime and you can bring the skills from any or all of those victories to help you succeed in your current goals.
So, Team, today I invite you to consider some of your successes – yes, even the smallest ones count – and think about how to apply them to your current project.
What skills did you learn?
What qualities did you need to build or strengthen?
What did you learn about what helps you persevere?
What did you figure out about how to deal with setbacks?
How does your previous success support your current efforts?
Now that you are considering previous successes, can you reframe any of the challenges you are facing in your current practice?*
Whether you are considering past successes, planning future successes, or you are doing whatever else you need to in order to move towards the life you want, I wish you ease and self-kindness today.
And, of course, I offer you this gold star for your efforts. (Notice all the shiny green successes in the background that are supporting that star!)
*Take the baking example above – During a busy time, making the dough one day and baking the cookies on another would just be good planning but somehow breaking down your yoga practice to do some poses today and different ones tomorrow can lead to feeling like you ‘aren’t doing yoga right.’ Reframing your thoughts on yoga in light of your well-planned cookies might make a big difference.
My ADHD has been especially tricky about time lately.
I mean, I always have trouble judging how much time I have, how much time I need, how long things will take, and how my tasks will best fit into the time available, but all of these challenges have been amplified lately.
And, as a result, my time feels tight and compressed and so does my brain.
And, as a result of that, I don’t feel like I have the time to do the kind of planning and thinking I like to do before getting started on anything.
And, as a result of that, I feel like I need to set aside hours and hours to get things in order before I actually do anything and my brain compiles a long list of ‘work before I can work’ that it insists must be done before anything else.
And, as a result of THAT, when I do clear a couple of hours to get things in order, I end up sitting there with a ton of ideas and must-do items in my head.
And, as a result of THAT, I end up in a situation where my brain decides that because I can’t do EVERYTHING then it will do nothing.*
Yes, this process is just as much fun as it sounds.
At this point, you may be thinking, “Well, that sucks, Christine, but what does it have to do with encouraging me to keep up my practices?”
Good news! I am indeed heading towards some advice and encouragement for you, I am just taking the long way.
You see, as much as my current process loop sucks, I also know that there is a way out of it.
I have to move my attention from all of the things that feel overwhelming and impossible and direct it towards the things that I CAN do right now.
I CAN make a list of the stuff that is bouncing around in my head.
I CAN put stuff on my calendar.
I CAN choose to work on one thing for a short period of time.** Some people might like to choose one task to do but I frame this way because it lets my brain know that the task can only go on for so long right now. That makes it easier to start.
And moving through those things I CAN do helps me start moving out of the loop and back towards my normal level of time-weirdness.
Of course, this all hinges on me becoming conscious of the fact that I am in the loop in the first place.
And HERE’S where my time issues can dovetail with your practices.
If you are finding it hard to get started on your practice (today or in general), to keep your actions going, to keep working towards the life you want, your attention may accidentally be focused on all of the things you can’t do.
You know the kind of thing I mean…
You don’t have time for a workout.
You don’t have time for a shower after your workout.
You can’t think of anything to journal about.
You are in the middle of decluttering and you don’t have room to roll out your yoga mat.
It’s loud at your house and you can’t focus on your meditation.
All of those things are totally valid and they may be a good reason to give yourself a break today.
BUT, if you don’t really want or need a break, you brain might be so focused on what you CAN’T do that it won’t let you see what you CAN do.
Perhaps you can do a shorter version of your workout or you can add in a walk or dance a little.
Perhaps you can do a workout that is less sweaty or do a bit of a sponge bath instead of taking a shower.
Perhaps you can write about not having anything to write about – this almost always leads me to finding something interesting to put on paper.
Perhaps you can do a standing yoga session or a yoga practice that can be done in bed.
Perhaps you can wear headphones or do something mindful or do a walking meditation.
By switching your focus to what you CAN do at the moment you can help yourself feel a lot better and you can do at least a placeholder version of your practice.
And that’s got to be good for you, right?
So, Team, today I invite you to consider where you are focusing your attention and how you can shift your thoughts towards what version of your practice is available to you today.
And, of course, here’s your gold star for your efforts.
Whether you are working hard, resting, figuring things out, or trying to figure out how to figure things out, I hope you will take a few minutes to celebrate what you CAN do, what you ARE doing, and, even what you are choosing NOT to do (a valuable practice in itself).
And make sure to give yourself a metaphorical pat on the back (or a literal one if you have the flexibility to do so) for everything you manage to fit into your days.
Go Team Us!
Please be kind to yourself out there.
This is one of my favourite star drawings I have ever made. A painting of a gold star that is trimmed in layers of black, gold, then black again. The background is decorated with thin vertical lines and clusters of circles. The lines are a repeating pattern of a slightly thicker black line, a thin gold line, a thin dark green line and a thin light green line. The circles are groups in some places and further apart in others. Each circle has a black circle with a dark or light green circle inside, and a black circle with a gold dot inside of that. The drawing is ‘framed’ with a thick black line.
*For the record, this is NOT a time to come at me with advice that starts with, “If you just…” because it will not be well-received. If ADHD could be solved by will power, I would have left it behind years ago. Also, I’m not exactly doing ‘nothing’ – that might actually be kind of restful – I am doing nothing that is actually helpful to me. I am experiencing an avalanche of thoughts while doing some tangential task that is not particularly relevant to the overall project and generally building up unpleasant feelings about the whole thing.
**I usually pick 13 minutes because my brain likes that amount of time.
No matter what kind of practice you are working on at the moment, you don’t have to do it alone.
And, yes, this is just as true if you are working towards a solo adventure far away from home as it is if you are taking a solo adventure into the deepest parts of your feelings as it is if you are joining a hockey team.
You can always seek, request, and build the kind of support you need to help you move forward in your practices, your habits, and toward your goals.
Just be choosy about who you ask for support.
For example, you don’t have to seek support from the person who is always negative but claims they are just being realistic. Being realistic would include a balance of positivity and negativity and if they can’t wrap their minds around that then they aren’t going to be much use to you.* The last thing you need to ask someone for support and then end up feeling worse!
I would, however, recommend ensuring that at least some of your support comes from someone who is firmly in your corner, someone who wholeheartedly believes in you. That doesn’t mean that they think you are perfect or that they would never offer suggestions to change your approach, it just means that they want what is best for you and they will support you in getting there.
You can also find support from in-person or online friends or acquaintances who have had similar experiences. You can seek out new people who have done what you are trying to do. And/or you can find seek out people who are at the same stage in the process and you can cheer each other on.
You can ask friends who are doing different projects to be accountability partners or to do some body-doubling for you. You can support each other even if you are working on different things.
You can also ask people who have had success in other areas about how they approach their work or how they would approach the practice you are trying to develop. Even if they haven’t done anything similar, their processes from other projects might give you a new idea for your own process. (To clarify: Here’s an example of this kind of thing from a CBC article I wrote in 2020.)
And you can also seek out non-interactive support – collecting memes, posts, and photos that you find encouraging and referring to them when you need a boost. This might look like keeping them in a specific folder on your phone, in your saved items on social media, or in your browser’s bookmarks, or, if you are so inclined, you could consider making a journal that includes quotes, images, and anything else that makes you feel good about your habit-building process.
Another form of non-interactive support could be creators you follow on YouTube and on social media or whose websites/newsletters you read. If reading their work, watching their videos, or doing their practices adds to your energy, then you can consider them as part of your support team.
Really, the important thing is that you support yourself by developing the support network and resources that you need to move towards the life you want to have.
You get to decide what kinds of support you need and the best ways to find them.
Oh, and please know that I am firmly in support of your efforts and that I wholeheartedly believe in you.
As always, here is your gold star to celebrate your efforts today.
See how all of those shapes are supporting each other to create the star? Funny how that works, hey? It’s like I was putting a message in the drawing AND in the text. I am so subtle!
So, Team, no matter what your practice looks like today and no matter how much or how little support you need at the moment, please know that your efforts matter and that you matter.
Be kind to yourself out there.
Go Team Us!
A painting of a gold star that is made up of triangles and other shapes that have been painted different colors, creating a kind of stained glass effect. Each section within the star is outlined in black, and the star itself is outlined in a line of black than a line of gold, and then another line of black. The background has been painted with watercolour pencil, and it’s sort of a brownish color. All along the outside edge of the paper there is a series of gold dots and they’ve each been trimmed in black.
Have you given any thought as to whether your efforts and your capacity match your expectations?
If not, today might be a good time to give it a try.
Sometimes we set a marvellous goal and give ourselves a timeline but we forget that we don’t necessarily have the time and energy to make that happen within that timeframe.
Then, as a result, we can end up being heard on ourselves or being very disappointed in ourselves when we don’t meet our own expectations.
The problem isn’t that we didn’t work hard enough, nor is it that we weren’t committed enough, the problem is that the time and energy we had available didn’t match the time and energy required to complete that goal in that timeline.
This is never about us not being good enough. It’s just a miscalculation.
I imagine that your goal is to write a first draft of your memoir this year. That’s going to take considerable time and energy.
If you only have one hour per week to work on your memoir, it’s a better idea to adjust the timeline of the project than it is to be upset with yourself about not getting it done in 52 hours.
If you can only fit one strength training session in per week, a goal that requires three strength training sessions is going to be a mismatch.
If you want to improve your shoulder flexibility, but you can only do stretches once a week for 10 minutes, that’s probably not going to be a quick process.
All of these goals are going leave you feeling like you are falling short or like there’s something wrong with you.
But you are doing just fine and there’s nothing wrong with you.
It’s OK to work slowly.
It’s OK to work within your capacity.
It’s OK to inch forward.
The key is to frame your goals and expectations in terms that match your current life and your current capacity.
If you are realistic about what you can accomplish on a regular basis, and you frame your goals accordingly, you will be much more satisfied and motivated, and you’ll be far less likely to be hard on yourself as you go along.
So perhaps your goal could be to work on your memoir for 52 hours this year.
Perhaps your strength training goal could be to extend your training session by a few minutes each month. Or perhaps your goal could be to explore ways to include a second training session per week.
For your shoulder flexibility, perhaps your goal could involve preventative actions changing the the chair you sit in or taking small movement breaks throughout your day.
Framing your goals that way puts them back within your reach and removes the mismatch between what you have to give and what you want to get out of it
We all have different capacities and those capacities differ from day-to-day for each individual.
We need goals that let us work within our capacity instead of shaming us for things that are beyond our capacity.
If we set our expectations based on our current capacity and abilities, we have a much better chance of getting where we want to go.
It may take us a while to get to our big picture goals, but we’ll feel a lot better along the way
So Team, whether today finds you scaling your goals, adjusting your activities, or working out just what you want to do next, I wish you ease and clarity.
And I celebrate your efforts, whatever size and shape they are, with these gold stars.
Go Team Us!
A drawing of three gold stars having on strings from a wavy shape that’s decorated with diagonal black pinstripes. The stars are outlined in black and there are gold dots in the background.
Now, if you are about to get all, “Christine, I’m not sure I am going to have any victories this year, I’m just trying to keep things small and…” then please pause that thought.
You know what I am going to say, right?
TEAM, EVERY EFFORT IS A VICTORY.
And since every effort is a victory, a step towards the life you want to create, it only makes sense to keep a record.
I like to keep a record of my efforts rather than my results because I know I can’t control my results (in fact, I can barely imagine what they might end up being) and tracking my efforts helps me to see the work I am doing on a regular basis.
Not everyone needs to keep this kind of record, of course, some people are able to do what feels right on a given day and trust in the process.
However, if I tried to do that not only would I often forget to do things that are important to me (Hello, ADHD!), but each action would feel isolated and kind of random.
Keeping track helps me to grasp that my daily activities have meaning, that my small efforts are part of a bigger project.
If I track my efforts, my victories, in some way, then they will automatically seem like part of a larger life project – the project of feeling good in my body and in my brain.*
So, I would like to invite you to consider doing something similar, to find ways that help you record your actions, your efforts, your victories, as you move towards the life you want to create.
Now, I’m not saying that you MUST create elaborate tracking charts or fancy spreadsheets but if you enjoy that kind of process, please have at it.
What I am saying is that tracking your habit-related actions can be useful and that you can do that tracking in any way that suits you.
You can track in a detailed way – noting the specifics of each exercise or practice to measure things that have meaning for you. (For example – I’m keeping track of how one of my hips feel.)
You can track simply – just noting whether or not you did the thing (don’t forget to set a low bar for what counts as done.)
Tracking can look like:
Adding stickers or a mark on a calendar (or a piece of paper with your habit written at the top)
Adding marbles or stones to a jar every time you do the thing.
Getting an accountability buddy and texting them whenever you do the thing.
You can choose literally any way of keeping track and you can use that method any way that you like.
The key here is that you find a way that works for you, that feels easy, and that helps you feel and see your accumulated efforts.
Like I said above, keeping track of your victories helps you focus on the things you can take charge of – your actions – rather than waiting on the things you cannot control – any possible results.
And if you have tried tracking your actions before but it didn’t feel great, you may want to work on reframing what the information in your tracker means.
Tracking your victories isn’t about creating guilt or shame, it’s about information.
If your tracker reveals that you are never getting around to certain tasks or activities, it doesn’t mean anything negative about you, it just means that you need to adjust your systems, that you may need to choose different activities for this point in your life, or that your initial idea for a new habit isn’t a good fit.
You don’t need to adjust to fit your plans, your plans need to adjust to suit you.
And the same goes for your tracker.
If your tracker doesn’t help you celebrate your victories, then kick that thing to the metaphorical curb.
Anyway, Team, whether you are tracking your victories, exploring your habit-building on a day-to-day basis, or trying something that I haven’t even thought of, I wish you ease and fun and great success.
And, I offer you these gold stars in celebration of your victories.
Your hard work matters.
You matter.
Go Team Us!
Image description: a drawing of three gold stars on a green shelf. The stars and the shelf are trimmed in black. The background of drawing is covered in green vertical pinstripes.
*Yes, they would be part of that project even if I wasn’t tracking them but I would be less conscious of it and that’s less helpful.
