Hey Team,

Here we are at the end of January!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to write to you every day throughout this month.

I love the way that this daily writing practice helps to shape the beginning of my year and I appreciate the time and energy you put into reading my posts.

It’s always hard to figure out what to say in these final posts each January because I want to be profound and encouraging and really sum things up…

And then I realize that in focusing so much on the results that I’m at risk of letting perfection get in the way of actually doing my practice.

So, after reminding myself that done beats perfect I usually just forge ahead and trust (once again) that I can let my routine carry me towards something useful to share. *

Today, my routine brought me to the reminder to keep going.

That doesn’t mean to just keep barreling down the path the initially set – unless that feels right to us.

It means to keep returning to the project of moving towards the life we want, no matter how much the details of our practices or our projects have changed since we first set them.

We don’t have to be in a hurry.

In fact, as long as we manage our expectations, we can go at any pace that works for us.

We don’t have to work by someone else’s rules.

We can change our minds on any and all details of the project.

We can go big or work piece by piece.

We can make it fun (or at least add some fun.)

It’s ok if things are easy, it’s ok if things are hard and it’s ok if that changes from day to day.

We are are all doing the best we can with the resources we have and if we are kind to ourselves, if we get curious about our challenges, if we get the rest we need, if we measure something that matters to us, and if we take the time to celebrate ourselves and our hard work, we will be successful on our own terms.

Note: Yes, I have included A LOT of links rights but I didn’t link all 31 posts from this month so if you want to see them all you can find them under the tag Go Team 2026 (or look under Go Team for all of the Go Team posts from previous years.)

So, Team, today I invite you to celebrate your efforts so far and to consider how you want to keep making things better/easier/kinder for future you.

Your efforts matter.

You matter.

Keep being kind to yourself, pretty please.

May you have ease, may you have fun, and may you find satisfaction in your practices.

Go Team Us!

PS – I will be writing more Go Team 2026 posts this year, usually around once per month.

*Yes, my posts are just as much notes-to-self as they are messages for you. 🙂

Hey Team,

Warning: I am in full pep talk mode today. You may want to sit down.

In every post, I remind you that your efforts matter.

All of your efforts count toward the practice you are trying to develop.

Today, I want to underline that point, highlight it, put it in bold, and draw your attention to it.

Your Efforts count!

ALL of the work you do – the thinking, the planning, the deciding, the actions, the resting, that is all adding up and moving you toward the life you want.

Even if it takes you a long time.

Even if you’re only moving a millimetre at a time.

You’re still moving in the direction that you want to go.

Even your mistakes, the things you changed your mind about, and your backtracking all count because they are part of the process.

You can’t get where you want to go without figuring out at least some of the places that you DON’T want to go.

You will grow and change between making the decision to do something, figuring out how to do it, doing that thing, and then seeing how it turns out.

The person you are becoming throughout that process may have different ideas, goals, and priorities than the person you were when you started – even if the process is short.

And that’s ok.

It’s GOOD even.

Learning as you go and making changes in your plan based on new information makes far more sense than sticking to a plan for the sake of the plan.

I mean, who does that help?

The plan doesn’t care if you do it.

This is all about YOU not about some plan.

Do what makes sense for you right now and feel free to change in the future.

Take time to notice how far you have come, not just how much is left to go.

And celebrate every single thing you have done to support yourself in the practice you are developing.

So Team, as always, here are your tiny, shiny stars for today.

Each one represents a small effort you made to move toward the life you want.

They represent momentum, choices, actions, rest, decisions, repetition, self-kindness, finding support, choosing done over perfect, focusing energy, and all of the other things you have done – some so small you didn’t even notice them – to incorporate your new practices into your life.

Those efforts all add up.

They all count.

They all matter.

And so do you.

Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please.

Go Team Us!

Hey Team,

In the spirit of moving my rowing machine into my living room and realizing (again) that done beats perfect, I would like to invite you to try some small solutions first.

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!

* 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.