Category: habits

a drawing of a robot holding a sign and the word January is below Christine’s January Experiments
ADHD · challenge · fitness · goals · habits · motivation

Christine’s January Experiments

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

In my first Tuesday post for 2026, I mentioned that January was going to be about experimenting and I have enjoyed the process of working slowly to figure things out.

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.

A gif from the cartoon Pinky and the Brain in which The Brain asks Pinky ‘Are you pondering what I’m pondering?’
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.

I LOVE My Medal!

My medal for the Salem Witch trials-themed walking challenge I did from October to December arrived last week and I am DELIGHTED by it. 

a rectangular medal on a light green ribbon
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 Evening Drawing Experiment

It’s a good thing this is an experiment not a goal because my first plan for adding drawing to my evening didn’t go well.

In fact, it has kind of backfired. 

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?

a drawing of a robot holding a sign and the word January is below
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.
A painting of a shiny gold star Go Team 2026: Choose Where Your Energy Goes
ADHD · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Choose Where Your Energy Goes

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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 painting of a shiny gold star
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!

a small painting of a gold star against a black background with gold highlights Go Team 2026: Done Beats Perfect
ADHD · advice · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Done Beats Perfect

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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:

  1. I was running out of time to write today
  2. The star is only part of my project and I can’t spend all my time on just that part
  3. 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 painting of a gold star against a black background with gold highlights
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.

A drawing of gold stars that are placed at the intersections of thin black lines. Go Team 2026: Easy Tasks, Hard Tasks, You Still Rock
advice · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Easy Tasks, Hard Tasks, You Still Rock

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

In the process of considering, developing, planning, and working on your new practices, you have probably (DEFINITELY!) noticed that some parts of the process are easy, some are hard, and some fall somewhere in between.

And when I mention it like that, you probably thought something like, “Of course, Christine. That’s kind of obvious.” *

Ok, so that brings to me to a question:

If we all know that, in the abstract, some parts of any given practice will feel easy, some parts will feel hard, and some will feel somewhere in between, why do so many of us default to dismissing our efforts when it comes to the easy tasks, blaming ourselves when we struggle with the hard tasks, and barely noticing how much work we put into most of the tasks?

You see, the easy tasks still take work even if that work is familiar, enjoyable, straightforward, or quick. We often find tasks easy because they fall within our existing skillset, because we have had a lot of practice at that sort of thing, or because they are the kind of task we enjoy. That doesn’t mean we should dismiss the effort involved.

In fact, we should make sure to take the time to celebrate that effort, to notice how we built, shaped, or chose to apply the skills that made it feel easy. We should notice how much we rock for being able to do those tasks with ease.

When it comes to the hard tasks, we can often default to assuming something is wrong with us, that we aren’t trying hard enough, while not even noticing that we are in the process of figuring out how to do this thing. We may even start dredging up past examples of things we were unable to do just because…wait, why on earth do we do that to ourselves? Does our brain think that is helping us somehow? Brains can be such jerks!

Sometimes tasks are hard because we don’t have the skills yet, sometimes they are hard because we don’t understand them or because we need a different system, sometimes they feel hard because they involve stuff we don’t enjoy doing, and sometimes tasks are just inherently hard.

It’s ok to have to put a lot of effort into something, it’s ok to need help, it’s ok to have to make adjustments or to have to work up to being able to complete a task or learn a practice. It’s ok to struggle more than someone else who is trying this same task (they probably struggle with something else that you find easy.)

Even amidst all of those struggles, even though the task feels SO hard, we still rock. Even if it takes us many, many tries, all of our efforts matter. They all count. They are part of the process of completing that task.

Our struggles don’t say anything negative about us, they speak to our persistence, our tenacity, our willingness to do the work. Those qualities are a great demonstration of how much we rock.

And, when it comes to the routine tasks that aren’t easy but aren’t hard?

We rock for doing those, too. I mean, think about it – trudging our way through tasks that don’t have an immediate payoff like an easy one does and that don’t provide the interesting challenge of an hard task? We should give ourselves extra credit for those things.

Besides, even though a given task FEELS easy, hard, or routine, it still requires effort. Our feelings about it may change our perception of the work but it doesn’t change the fact that there is work involved.

Reminding ourselves to notice the work, to commend ourselves for doing it, to accept our gold star for our efforts, can help us to see how far we have come, to stick with our practices, and to pay attention to how awesome we are for finding ways to move toward the lives we want.

So, Team, whether today’s tasks are easy, hard, or routine, I hope you will take the time to celebrate your efforts and remember how much you rock.

Here are today’s gold stars in honour of your efforts to move toward the life you want AND in honour of your efforts to notice how much you rock.

Be kind to yourself out there!

Go Team Us!

A drawing of gold stars that are placed at the intersections of thin black lines.
Image description: a drawing of 12 gold stars of various sizes against a background of thin intersecting lines. I have placed a star at each point where lines intersect.

*Your tone and degree of snarkiness probably varied but that’s your business. Luckily, I am not cursed with the ability to read people’s thoughts. Can you even imagine what a burden that would be? How would you ever rest?

A drawing of a large gold star against a colourful background. Go Team 2026: Give Yourself A Break
220 in 2020 · ADHD · advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Give Yourself A Break

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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 gold star against a colourful background.
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.

A drawing of lots of gold stars of various sizes Go Team 2026: Rest Is A Key Ingredient
advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · rest · self care

Go Team 2026: Rest Is A Key Ingredient

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Rest is one of the most important and most overlooked components of any efforts we are making to move towards the life we want.

Your rest doesn’t have to wait until all the work is done or until everything is figured out. It’s not extra or a ‘nice-to-have-if-you-have-time’ – it’s actually part of the process of doing things and figuring things out.

No matter what practice you are currently developing, the underlying goal is going to be similar – everyone’s goals in this area are about feeling good and inhabiting all of the corners of their lives.

The connection between your actions and the practice you are developing is generally pretty clear but the connection between rest and success may be a bit more murky.

Basically, in your quest to improve your well-being rest is vital. 

Resting is not ‘taking a break’ from your practice, it is PART of your practice, part of your routine, part of your process.

Not only is rest valuable in itself but with all of the effort you are putting in, you need to rest your body, your mind, and your spirit or you will struggle to do the other things you want to do.

You need periods of action and periods of rest in order for your practice to work.

If you constantly try to push yourself forward without rest, you may be able to keep up your practice but your tasks (and your enjoyment of them) will suffer because of your lack of rest.

Now, I know that not everyone has the same amount of time to rest in a given day, a given week, or a given month.

I’m not suggesting that everybody can just drop everything and rest on a whim.

BUT

Given that rest is so important to your practice and to your well-being in general, it’s worth reconsidering what rest *can* look like for you.

Maybe you can’t take long periods of rest but maybe you can take short periods of rest here and there.

Maybe you can batch your tasks so you can create time to breathe before switching to a new set of activities.

Maybe you can choose not to do certain activities on certain days so you have a little room to rest. (Your practices won’t be ruined if you structure them to include downtime.)

You can reduce the nature, scope, or details of some of your activities and practices to free up some time and energy.

Like so many other areas of our lives, rest is not an all or nothing situation.

You don’t have to choose between perfect rest and not resting at all.

Just like you can benefit from short bursts of activities, you can benefit from even small amounts of rest. (Here are some ideas from PHE Canada)

So, Team, today I invite you to remember the value of rest in developing your practices (and in enjoying your life more!) AND I invite you to consider how to add at least some small rest periods to your schedule.

And here are your gold stars for your efforts today whether you are trying to rest or in an active phase of moving toward the life you want.

Be kind to yourself out there.

And, always…

Go Team Us!

A drawing of lots of gold stars of various sizes
Lots of stars of all different sizes to reward all kinds of rest or all kinds of effort. Image description: a drawing of over 60 stars in various sizes (but most are small), each outlined in black. The background is filled with thin, diagonal black lines that extend downwards towards the right. The lines sort of give the impression of connecting some of the stars. The edges of the drawing are trimmed in black.
A drawing of a green striped door with a gold star in the middle with yellow sections, curving around the outside door Go Team 2026: Measure Something That Matters To You
advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Measure Something That Matters To You

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

Today, I’m wondering what meaningful things you are measuring as you move towards the life you want.

Whenever we start something new we have always have layers of reasons for choosing that practice.

And some of those reasons provide obvious things to measure while the measurements for other layers may take more thought.

But I think the layers that require more thought may just be more meaningful for us overall. They can help us dig into our most important motivations and inspire us to continue even when things get challenging.

Let me illustrate this with an example: imagine that you have decided to journal one page each day.

You may start because you like the idea of journaling, of documenting your life, or of working out some of your feelings on paper.

Your first layer reason for taking on this practice might just be ‘I want to try this.’ and the obvious measurement is whether or not you do the thing. You can check that off on your tracker or on a list or even just in your mind – ‘Yes, I wrote one page today.’

But any practice we take on for our own well-being is not just about the practice itself.

It’s always about how the practice is going to improve our lives and make us feel better .

So, when it comes to journaling, you’re not just trying to fill pages. You’re also seeking something else.

Perhaps you’re also hoping for some peace of mind, to have fewer unfinished thoughts bumping around in your head, or to notice your thought patterns.

Since those changes would be meaningful and would improve your well-being, it would be worthwhile to figure out how to measure whether your practice is leading you towards those things.

Perhaps you could do that by taking a moment every now and then to notice if you feel more peaceful or if your brain feels more at ease and make a note of any differences your find. You could do this whenever it occurs you or you could create regular check-in points.

Measuring these changes over time might look like colour-coding a circle on a chart each day, checking in with yourself one morning a week, or anything else that makes you feel good about paying attention to this element of your life.

Then, on yet another layer, you may be hoping that your journalling gives you some space to react differently in certain situations.

If you always find the drive to work quite stressful but you have been working out your feelings around that in your journal then you may want to measure if your stress level changes overtime. That may involve taking specific time for a different type of reflection or it may just involve asking yourself to occasionally rate your stress levels while driving.

When it comes to your own practices for well-being, it’s worth considering the different layers of change that you are hoping this practice will bring to your life.

(Note: Not every practice will have deep layers but they will all have at least one layer below ‘I’m going to try this.’)

And once you have figured some of those other layers out, it’s definitely worth finding a way to measure them.

That doesn’t mean you have to keep a checklist or add a lot of other tasks to your life, it can be a simple mental check-in at whatever interval makes sense for you and for your new practice.

And remember that when it comes to your well-being qualitative measurements matter as much, if not more, as quantitative ones.

You don’t need to mathematically prove that your practice made you feel better, all you need is to know that it did.* And any measurement that allows you to notice that change is a valid one.

So, Team, whether today finds you measuring something, figuring out how to measure something, exploring what else you are trying to get out of your practice, or doing anything else that helps you move towards the life you want to have, I wish you ease.

And, of course, I offer you this gold star for your efforts.

Go Team Us!

Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please!

A drawing of a green striped door with a gold star in the middle with yellow sections, curving around the outside door
I’m not sure if the yellow parts are leading you towards the door or if it’s light emanating from behind the door but either way this gold star is in celebration of your efforts today. Image description: a gold star on a door with a curved top. The door is surrounded by curved. Lines are King away from the door in all directions. The large gold star is in the middle of the top part of the door. The door itself is decorated with alternating lines in four different shades of green. I’m just noticing that I didn’t draw a door knob so it’s clearly a magic door. The curved lines curved down from the door on either side and up and away from the door at the top. Each section created by those black curved lines is coloured with one of four alternating shades of yellow and each section has different sized small black dots.

* Alternatively, it may help you notice that you’re not feeling much of a difference. And if that’s the case, then you can look at your system, your approach, and see if something needs to be adjusted.

A painting of a shiny gold star against a background of thin lines and layered circles. Go Team 2026: What CAN You Do Today?
ADHD · advice · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: What CAN You Do Today?

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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.

A painting of a shiny gold star against a background of thin lines and layered circles.
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.

A small painting of a gold star that is made up of smaller triangle shapes and other shape shapes painted different colors. Go Team 2026: Gather Support
ADHD · advice · fitness · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Gather Support

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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 small painting of a gold star that is made up of smaller triangle shapes and other shape shapes painted different colors.
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.

A black vase filled with gold stars on long stems. Go Team 2026: Varied Days Need Varied Plans
advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Varied Days Need Varied Plans

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Note: I wrote this via voice dictation and published it too quickly. My apologies to those who read the error-riddled version prior to this this one.

Hey Team,

One of the biggest challenges I have with adding something new to my life is the fact that my days aren’t the same.

Maybe you’re someone with lots of routine and schedules in your life, but I’m not -in fact trying to make my days feel even remotely similar is a huge challenge for me.

And when you add the fact that the effects of my ADHD can vary, depending on how much sleep I’ve had, how busy I am, and a bunch of other factors, it complicates things even further.

So I have had to learn to accept that I will have different capacities on different days.

I know this is true for everyone, but I feel like I really get a lot of practice.

And, as a result, I have had to learn to develop several different types of plans for accomplishing any given thing and, when I remember to use them, those varied plans can be really helpful.

I thought they might be helpful to you too, even if you don’t have ADHD.*

So, let’s imagine that you want to add a set of five exercises into your day.

Perhaps you know that, on the average day, you can do these right when you get up. Those days you’re done early, you have that task out of the way, and you have a sense of accomplishment.

But on other days, you may have an appointment to get to, or you may not have slept well, or you have to respond to some family situation, or there may be some other disruption in your schedule.

If that kind of disruption is a rare occurrence, you can probably just skip that day and return to your plan the next day.

But if you’re like me, and you have some days that are fairly routine and many others that are kind of all over the place, you may want to have several versions of your plan

So, plan one would be to do your exercise exercises as soon as you get up.

On days when you didn’t sleep well perhaps your plan could be to do one of each exercise so that minimal routine sort of holds your place.

On days when you have an unusual appointment, perhaps your plan can be to do those exercises right before supper.

On days when you have family commitments, perhaps you can sprinkle your exercises throughout the day.

And while I know that some of us can wake up in the morning, realize that today will be a bit more complex, and then make a new plan on the spot, others of us may have difficulty doing that.

For those of us who find that challenging (i.e. Me!), the benefit of having thought through several scenarios in advance is that we’re not faced with an all or nothing decision in a moment when things are going awry.

If you don’t have a back-up plan and you get up in the morning, you’re running late, and you realize you can’t do your exercises, you may feel upset, frustrated, and be hard on yourself for not sticking to your plan.

When you have varied plans for varied days you have a bit of breathing room. And even if something comes up that you don’t have a plan for, you may be able to adapt one of your existing plans for this new situation.

So, Team, today I’m inviting you to consider how ELSE you may be able to include your practices in your day, even if your schedule ends up looking different than you expected it to.

Developing a few different scenarios like I’ve described above can be a great kindness to your future self so it will be worth any extra effort that’s required in advance.

Whether you are working on one plan, many plans, or still considering what a plan for your future self might look like, I am celebrating your efforts.

And here are a series of gold stars to represent all the bits and pieces of effort involved in moving towards the lives we want.

Go Team Us!

Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please.

A black vase filled with gold stars on long stems.
Image description: a vase filled with gold stars that are on thin black stems. The vase is black and has a pink ribbon tied around it. The background of the drawing is sprinkled with purple dots.

*Now, I will warn you that this is one of those lines where I try to prepare enough for the possibilities without overwhelming myself with details. If you don’t have ADHD, this may look like overthinking. If you have ADHD, my balance might not work for you but let’s see how it goes.

**You know that I’m always going to advocate being kind to yourself whether or not you stick to the plan, but we all know how hard it can be to choose self kindness in frustrating moments so I love any approach that makes it easier.)