If, like me, you’re a habitual maker of lists, you know how enjoyable it can be to make one. I want to tell you about the two kinds of lists I tend to make.
The first type is a detailed, four-quadrant list that is legibly handwritten in a spiral notebook. It’s a strategy I learned from leadership training years ago: draw two lines bifurcating the left and right, top and bottom of the page. Top left: IMMEDIATE to-dos. Top right: TODAY to-dos. Bottom left: TOMORROW to-dos. Bottom right: LATER THIS WEEK. Now there’s four lists! 🤩
This 4-list system has helped me triage competing demands and deadlines in a busy life schedule. As the top half got completed by the end of the day, I’d feel that little list-hit of dopamine. More satisfaction would come when tomorrow’s items were ALL scratched off and became today’s.
My second style of list is a scrawl of half-expressed ideas onto the back of a mail envelope, program flyer, or receipt. These lists get folded and stuffed into my pockets or become bookmarks, only to be discovered later, partly deciphered partly forgotten.
Over the past few months I have not had the discipline of a tidy schedule. My flâneuse-style wandering has reflected in my list-making. I tried to make a type 1 list, but items didn’t easily sort when my “today” and “tomorrow” have been so fluid. Instead, the type 2 lists catch my daily thoughts before they dissolve, little messy scraps that reveal how I am figuring out what shape my life takes next.
List Type 2: A handwritten list on the back of a Saje sales receipt: CAAT, 4-piece snaps, unemployment (CHECK!), City of London, MOI. What does it all mean? I hardly know myself.
Adam Grant has a WorkLife episode on procrastination where he suggests writing a to don’t list to make visible what’s might be delaying one’s progress and help get yourself out of your own way. That’s not a bad idea, especially when big life transitions mean the work of processing hard feelings, managing stress, and trying to find small wins.
So I’m giving a type 3 list a try. Moving into my next life phase, which doesn’t yet have neat time-bound quadrants, I write neatly down the centre of the page:
Don’t be hard on yourself.
Don’t fail to appreciate what you have.
Don’t seek certainty at the expense of your joy.
Don’t not trust yourself. (Double negative, but you get it.)
This third type of list has turned out to be important, not because it tells me what I need to do but because it reminds me who I want to be.
Hmm, if I were to pull a Tarot card before I started exercising would that mean I was doing a woo-kout?
Yes, I do find myself funny. Your mileage may vary.
As a writer, a storyteller, and someone who is intrigued by mysteries, magic, and ghost stories, I love Tarot cards, Oracle cards, story dice, and all of that kind of stuff.
A few tiles from a set of oracle tiles I created for myself out of wooden tiles, drawings, stickers, and collage items. Image description: six small rectangular tiles on a wrinkled green cloth. One tile has three candles and a striped background, one has a gold star against a background of black lines, one has a window or maybe a French door against a green background and there are flowers in a vase in front of the door/window, another has the word wonder cut from a magazine against a black background with gold polkadots, another shows a green puzzle piece against a background of gold and black alternating lines, and the final one shows a sticker of a snail moving up a green hill that I drew on the tile.
And I use those tools regularly for writing, storytelling, journaling, and reflecting.
I’m not particularly mystical about using them. I know that some people are very engaged with the rituals around Tarot but I generally think of myself as in conversation with my subconscious rather than with an unknown force. (The woo in my title is more about playing with perceptions than about my approach to engaging with these tools.*)
I like the way that Tarot or Oracle cards give me a container for examining my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to a situation.
And given the speed at which my ADHD brain seeks context, generates ideas, and weaves a web of connecting thoughts, it can be a relief to have a structure I can borrow to organize my thinking.
So, when I found myself planning to journal on the question, “What could make it easier for me to exercise?, it made sense for me to turn to my Tarot cards for some guidance.
 I drew the Three of Cups.
This particular three of cups card is from the Phantomwise Tarot by Erin Morgenstern and the images are related to her book The Night Circus. Image description: A tarot card is propped up between the keys of my black computer keyboard. The card depicts three feminine presenting figures in long dresses and black opera gloves lifting glasses high in the air towards each other in a ‘Cheers’ sort of gesture. The occurred itself is black, and all of the images are in black white and grey.
The interpretation of this card seems pretty straightforward (although there are ways to dive deeply into the meanings of any card, of course.)
This card is about friendship, joy, support, and connection and it resonated with me in terms of my exercise practice.
I know that all of those things can be helpful for any ongoing practice but I hadn’t really thought about whether I needed to include them in my fitness plans.
But ensuring that friendship, joy, support, and connection are part of the plan seems like a pretty good place to start making my exercise easier to do.
So I changed the nature of the questions I was asking myself.
Instead of just ‘What could make it easier to exercise?’ I asked myself:
How can I make the exercise process more fun?
How can I make exercise a more social activity?
What kind of support do I need to make it easier for me to exercise?
Now, I know that all of these questions have come up for me before.
They’ll probably come up again.
But since the initial question occurred to me now and those other questions arose as a result, they’re worth exploring.
I don’t think I would’ve thought along these lines without drawing that card.
I probably wouldn’t have considered whether I needed a social element or more moral support right now.
But since the themes of that card resonated with me, I’m going to explore how they might be helpful to me.
A different card may or may not have resonated but, at the very least, it would have guided me to different questions to consider.
And journalling without pulling a card would have probably been helpful but my thoughts may not have been focused and they likely have sent me off in a whole different direction.
So, just as I had hoped, pulling a Tarot card gave me a container for my thoughts, a way to direct my inquiries that felt purposeful.
And even if the card hadn’t resonated, I would have been able to journal about why that definitely wasn’t what I needed – a helpful piece of information in itself.
Anyway, I’ll let you know about any useful answers that arise from my journalling in response to these questions.
And now I have a few questions for you:
Do you ever use Tarot as a way to guide or contain your thinking on a given topic?
Have you ever found Tarot useful for your fitness practices?
Would you like me to pull a card to help guide your thinking about a fitness question?
If so, please let me know in the comments!
*If you have a more mystical or esoteric approach to using divination tools, please don’t think I am dismissing you here. I am aiming for a clear description of my approach not a dismissal of yours.
I love a good group post. Last month I did a three part series called “Thirsty Thursday”. It got a lot of traction, especially from friends and colleagues, people want to talk about other options than drinking alcohol while out on the town or celebrating at home. Here’s our favourites.
Catherine
Honestly, right now I’m treating myself to the occasional fresh-squeezed orange or grapefruit juice. Several evenings this week I poured myself a small glass half-full of OJ, and drank it with great pleasure. The tart citrus, the texture of pulp, even the bright orangey-yellow color are sensory delights during the dark cold winter. It’s intense, so it’s perfect for sipping. I am squeezing grapefruits myself for the next round of after-dinner citrus concoctions. Yes, you add grenadine for color/flavor-sweetness, and/or seltzer or tonic for fizz, but at the moment I’m into the pure power of citrus.
Sam
I’m a big fan of Geez Louise. The company is Canadian and women-owned. The drink is prebiotic sparkling water with 5g of plant-based fiber, zero sugar, and no sweeteners. I like Melon Mint best, Lemon Lavender second best, and Grapefruit Basil third.
There’s a lot I can’t drink now, coffee after noon, very carbonated beverages any time. Luckily I’m happy with plain water most of the time. Also, mint tea. But the Jeez Louises taste good and don’t upset my stomach so they’re a win.
A picture of four cans of Geez Louise Melon Mint.
Elan
I haven’t tried this yet but the Juicer at Pearl Morrisette, One of only a few two Michelin star restaurants in Ontario, creates a tisane with herbs infused in water, then mixes with a fresh pressed juice. The result is depth and complexity without too much sweetness. Try infusions with basil, nettle, sea buckthorn, oregano, or lavender!
Martha
The Carbon Bar has a great mocktail menu. My favourite mocktail is any variation of a Moscow mule. I love the zip the non alcoholic ginger beer gives to fruit syrups!
It’s in Toronto. It’s also quiet, conducive to conversation and the meal we had there a few years ago was lovely.
Diane
I love my sparkling water with a splash of flavouring. I use a SodaStream because it creates less waste, and preferred flavours are lemon or some sort of shrub (an old syrup recipe that I make using fruit, vinegar and sugar). You can find the recipe here:https://siglindesarts.wordpress.com/2024/01/01/rhubarb-shrub/
A funnel shaped crystal glass containing a drink the colour of ginger Allie on a white lace tablecloth.
Tracy
Day to day I like flavoured sparkling water. But my favourite two mocktails are both at Planta: the cucumber mule and the cosmic colada. So good.
Nicole
I have had some good shrubs and similar in restaurants, but really, I’m happy with good coffee – or – a Diet Coke!
Cate
I like RISE hibiscus kombucha for a sparkling middle of the day treat.
Nat
There are so many great mocktails. My favourites are Edna’s mojito. It’s crisp and served over a glass full of ice so the tall can goes far.
Clever G&T is available at grocery stores in Ontario and is a modest price point.
Chill Street Gin Fizz from Nova Scotia is tangy and blueberry flavored.
As a side note, I loved reading everyone’s go to drinks. I remember the first fresh squeezed orange juice I ever had. It was in Florida and it tasted like sunshine.
Often I’m looking for complexity or intensity of flavour, a different kind of stimulation than water, tea or coffee.
I hope you found inspiration to try something new!
After last week’s post about January’s experiments, my plan was to just explore the questions I was asking myself and then carry on with the same activities throughout February.
But then, on Sunday morning, I woke up with the idea that I wanted to add two things to my plans for February.*
Sure, this 2 is a little wonky but it’s grand that way. Same could be said for many of us, hey? 😉 image description: the number two drawn in red with gold trim against a background of red dots. The card the drawing is on is also trimmed in gold and it is resting on my black computer keyboard. I borrowed this drawing from my Dec 2 post.
My first instinct was to talk myself out of it – I’m already working on several things and I don’t want to overload myself – but then I realized that these two small things fit in quite nicely with the ways I am trying to establish practices and processes overall for myself in 2026.
So, that’s why I am going ahead with adding at least a 1 minute wall-sit and adding 1 more serving of veggies to my lunch this month.
These practices both feel like a good way to work on trying something imperfectly (which was the topic of one of my questions in last week’s post!) and they will be beneficial to me even if I don’t get to them every single day.
Both of these things can be helpful for my bloodpressure (I’m on BP meds already and just keeping an eye on my numbers.)
I really want to eat more veggies anyway so the structure of ‘1 more at lunch’ is a straightforward way to start.
The wall-sits will take very little time, they feel doable and they are good for my glutes and my knees – both of which need some attention.
So, even though these things are ‘extra’ they will help me with my big picture goals., they have lots of potential benefits with minimal effort, and if they don’t work out?
No big deal!
These are experiments – if they don’t work, I can try something else.
But if they do work I will have practiced more practices, strengthened my legs, eaten more veggies, had more satisfying lunches, taken good care of myself, and maybe even done something good for my blood pressure.
Let’s see how it goes!
*Convenient, hey? 2 things for the second month? Sometimes my brain is so TIDY!)
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.
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. 🙂
For my last Go Team 2025 post, I reminded you that I was (am!) incredibly proud of you for everything you did for yourself throughout the year and I thought now would be a good time for me to remind that I am incredibly proud of you and of your efforts so far this year.
The short version of this would be the title of this post:
GO YOU!
But the longer version goes like this:
I am so very proud of you and of all your hard work.
You have made decisions to try something new, to add things to your life, to step away from things that no longer serve you, to try to make your life easier, to try and challenge yourself, to make things calmer in your life, to make yourself stronger in body/mind/spirit.
Isn’t that incredible?
You made a conscious choice to seek out a different version of your life AND you committed to the effort that will require.
You have recognized that there will be challenges and setbacks but you have decided to acknowledge them as part of the process.
You know that there is work involved but that the work will be worth it.
What a wonderful gift you have given yourself.
What a great commitment to self-care and to future you.
I am so PROUD of you!
You have realized that taking care of yourself is not selfish and that you deserve care just as much as the next person does.
AND that taking care of yourself in this way not only benefits you, but it benefits people who look up to you, people who depend on you, and it ensures that you have the capacity to work with others to create the changes we need in the world.
After all, the version of you that is worn out or burnt out wouldn’t be able to help anyone until you recover.
The version of you that takes care of themselves can decide when and how to respond to the needs of those around them.
Are you starting to get why I am so proud of you for undertaking this work, for putting in this effort?
Can you declare your own pride in your efforts or at least consider the possibility that your pride may develop over time?
You don’t need to be finished or to have results to be proud of yourself, you can choose to take pride in your efforts.
Today, I invite you to enjoy the fact that I am so very proud of you and to explore the idea of being proud of your own efforts.
And I invite you to collect your gold stars in recognition of your work.
Your efforts matter.
You matter.
Go Team Us
And
GO YOU!
I had a lot of fun making this one. I started with some wavy lines for the background and they didn’t feel right so I got a few watercolour pencils and played around with them until the background made me happy. Image description: A small painting of a bunch of gold stars ranging in size from quite small to about the size of a thumbprint. The background has a series of wavy lines running horizontally. I drew the lines with marker, and then I went over them with blue, black, and purple, watercolour pencils until I got the right kind of look – a bit like the night sky reflected in water. Then I drew a bunch of stars and small dots and outlined them with black.
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!
OK, I’ll admit this looks a little bit like a bowl of breakfast cereal but it’s totally a bowl of stars I swear. Image description: a green bowl of tiny stars sitting on a blue surface. The blue surface has light gold lines in it and the background behind the bowl for the top 2/3 of the paper consists of thin, horizontal black lines.
First things first – If you’re wondering if I chose the word station in the title because it rhymed with inspiration, I totally did.
Second things second:
It can take a long time for new practices to feel comfortable, for you to build the skills that will let you enjoy them, for you to get used to including them in your life, and for you to feel the positive changes you are seeking.
That’s why I keep asking you to focus on your efforts.
By paying attention to your efforts and by collecting gold stars, you can feel momentum and find motivation all throughout the process of change instead of trying to wait until this particular practice is well-established.*
But I also think it is good to develop other motivational practices, to find things that inspire you to keep going, to regularly revisit your reasons for adding these practices to your life.
This is where the inspiration station comes in!
It doesn’t have to be a literal station (but it can be!) and it doesn’t have to be elaborate (but it can be!) and it doesn’t have to be obvious to anyone else (but it can be!), but it can be fun and helpful to create a place, a ritual, or a routine that reminds you why you are trying to accomplish these new things.
And, of course, you can create your literal or metaphorical inspiration station any way that you like as long as it brings you joy, determination, and a bit of oomph.
You can create a collage (paper or digital) of images, quotes, and ideas that help you charge up.
You can keep a list of quotes (digital or handwritten or printed) that bring you a sense of power and energy.
You can save memes or photos on your phone or desktop and revisit them whenever you want a boost.
You can keep a reflective well-being journal that lets you see how far you have come and reminds you of how good your practices make you feel.
You can create a sign with ideas, images, quotes, and reminders of past successes and post it wherever you do your practices.
You can set a motivational reminder on your phone so it pops up regularly. (On an iPhone you can label your alarms so you could change the text to read, “Focus and Determination! You can do this!” or something else that feels good to you and set it to go off at a useful time each day.)
You can make a ‘Becoming Board’ that draws you toward your future self. It’s like a vision board but with some key practices that can make a big difference.
You can create a ritual of saying or doing certain encouraging and motivational things before each practice or before you start a new week or a new stage in your practices.
If you are neurodivergent and you find that affirmations or inspirational quotes send you into a loop of questions and fact-checking, try using questions instead of a statement, “*What if* I am strong enough to do this?” “What would it look like if I returned to my journal daily?” and see if that approach helps. I can’t find where I found this suggestion but, judging by my google search, it’s a pretty common one. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t invent it.
You can come up with something fun and helpful and encouraging that I have no idea about because you are the boss of you and I don’t live in your head. (That’s probably for the best for both of us. It would just be too weird!)
Of course, all of these things will only work if you look at them so you may want to make a daily or weekly or monthly reminder to look at your inspiration station and get…you guessed it…inspired!
So, Team, whether you are making an inspiration station, running in the opposite direction from an inspiration station, or doing any sort of practice, plan, or procedure that helps you move in the direction of the life you want to be living, I wish you self-kindness, determination, and the perfect kind of inspiration.
And, of course, I offer you these gold stars in celebration of your efforts.
Go Team Us!
Lots of stars for all kinds of inspiration! Image description: A painting of around 20 shiny gold stars that are trimmed in a thick black line and a very thin white line. The stars are all overlapping and layered. The background is painted blue and is decorated with very thin horizontal white lines looking a little like a sheet of loose leaf paper with the colours reversed. The painting is trimmed in black with a thin white line on the inner edge.
*I know, I know. There is no end to change in our lives but let’s just carry on, hey?
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.
