Category: planning

A clear plastic rectangular box with two stacks of index cards inside it Index Card Fitness Planning
ADHD · fitness · goals · planning · self care · trackers

Index Card Fitness Planning

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I think I have found a workaround for one of my most annoying fitness challenges and, oddly enough, it involves one of my favourite offices supplies – INDEX CARDS!

If you have been reading my posts for a while then you know that I find it difficult to set big picture fitness goals because I’m not sure what I want my endpoint to be.

I mean, I want to be stronger or have more ease in my movements (especially after the challenges of the last few years) but I don’t really have a way to measure that except for ‘feeling stronger’ or ‘feeling more ease.’

Both of those things sound good in principle but I know that my ADHD brain will send me into endless loops of ‘Was that enough?’ ‘Do I feel better or worse than yesterday?’ ‘Am I putting in the right effort here?’ and I won’t find much fun or much satisfaction in that whole process.

Meanwhile, though, I also don’t have a lot invested in more measurable things like being able to reach a particular speed when walking or lift a certain weight or do a specific number of reps. Those things don’t really resonate for me and I know that I will just get kind of meh about them over time.

And even though I understand intellectually that additional consistent exercise will be helpful, some part of my brain is not really buying into the idea and keeps insisting that effort today is not really going to add up to anything and I will just be wasting time that I could spend reading or writing or doing something fun.

But, at the same time, I know that I am wrong about that and I keep trying different ways to jumpstart a fitness plan.

Last week, I did some thinking about how I could encourage myself to take on a longer term exercise project that would let me see my efforts all along without having to choose some sort of specific result to work towards.

I want the process of exercising to be so routine that any results will just be a sort of by-product of the activity rather than being the point.

Eventually, I figured out that I could choose to commit to 100 workouts.

I wouldn’t have to pick a specific type of workout or a specific length of workout and I wouldn’t have to accomplish anything specific, I would just have to pick something and do it.

And even my somewhat-belligerent-on-this-topic brain has to admit that I will definitely see and feel some differences after 100 workouts.

Once I had decided on that number, I wanted to find a way to track it and maybe make some notes about the various workouts I tried.

And that’s when I came up with the index card solution.

I love index cards for notetaking, for planning, and for art so they are a very friendly material for me – which is a good start.

One of the reasons I enjoy using index cards for those things is the fact that they are relatively small so I can’t take on too much. That seems like a good approach for these workouts too.

Friendly and will prevent me from taking on too much? So far, so good!

The other benefit of index cards in this context is that if I write one index card per workout, I will be able to see those workouts adding up over time as I move toward my 100 card target.

So, here’s the plan I started late last week:

  • Open a brand new package of index cards and put them in a container that will hold the blank cards and the completed ones side-by-side.
  • Workout 100 times in the next six months.
  • Write about each individual workout on a separate card and keep it in the same case.
  • Watch my progress and feel good about the whole thing.

And it truly has been ‘so far so good’ – I have done four workouts* and filled out four cards and it feels manageable and useful.

In fact, I feel exactly like I hoped I would – that the index cards are the point of the whole thing and any results are just a bonus – and I think that’s a good sort of feeling for me to have about this project because it keeps my brain from looping about the specifics.

Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

*Next week’s post will be about how I chose what will count as a workout. 🙂

To do lists
advice · challenge · fitness · goals · habits · planning

To do lists

elan.paulsonLeave a comment

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.

A handwritten list on the back of a Saje sales receipt: CAAT, 4-piece snaps, unemployment (CHECK!), City of London, MOI.
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.

a photo of a tree in fall colours on the side of a suburban street Christine managed 8/10 for October. How will she do in November?
ADHD · challenge · fall · health · planning

Christine managed 8/10 for October. How will she do in November?

Christine Hennebury2 Comments

I know, I know! The tension is almost unbearable!

On October 7, I made a plan for 10 activities for the 10th month and even though October included a storytelling festival, a week of rain, a week of being sick, and quite a bit of volunteer work, I still managed to do 8 out of 10 activities. 

Here’s what got done:

  • Flail along with a Zumba dance video – Rating: BIG FUN.
  • Do a yoga video that is longer than 30 minutes – Rating: Hard to stick with it.
  • Do a meditation session that is longer than 10 minutes – Rating: No problem!
  • Do a strength training session with exercise bands – Rating: Enjoyable! I’m going to stick with it.
  • Write in my journal while on the floor – Rating: My body liked it.
  • Spend at least 20 minutes stretching – Rating: Loved it! I’ve made it a regular practice.
  • Try a kickboxing video – Rating: Pretty fun. I’ll do more.
  • Plant bulbs for next spring – Rating: Satisfying! I didn’t plan all of the bulbs but I did some and I’m happy about it.

I enjoyed all of these activities and I was really glad I chose them.

I was also really glad that I had the slight pressure of having publicly committed to them.  Without that commitment, I might have let a few of them slide and that would have been a shame.

I really feel that pushing myself a little bit to get these things done added to my fun this month. 

I actually did many of the exercise-related ones more than once and I have gotten back into leaving my yoga mat unfurled on the living room floor so I can stretch whenever I watch TV – a beneficial habit, for sure.

As for the ones I didn’t get done?

I’m happy to report that I don’t feel badly about those at all. 

I may not have been able to…

  • Meet someone for a walk instead of for tea
  • Walk to a meeting

But that was because of circumstances, weather, and timing, it had nothing to do with my interest, willingness, or motivation. None of my meetings happened to be within walking distance and I ended up having to cancel my plans to meet for a walk instead of for tea because I was sick. 

So with a satisfying success rate for 10 things for the 10th month, I’m now considering 11 things for the 11th month (a.k.a. My BIRTHDAY MONTH!)

There are some repeats in here but I’m cool with that.

  • Journal while sitting on the floor once a week
  • Practice those three tricky TKD patterns for at least 30 minutes (total)
  • Try a calisthenics video
  • Continue the stretch band strength training program from October 
  • Go swimming 
  • 30 minutes on the rowing machine
  • Plan a personal retreat day
  • Rake up some of the backyard leaves (I’m leaving some for the bugs!)
  • Do a 30 minute yin yoga video
  • Do at least one 10 minute meditation per week
  • Find a way to elevate keyboard for a standing writing session

Have you got any extra activities planned for November?

fitness · planning · play · rest · self care

Self Care September

Christine Hennebury

I know, I know.

Thinking about self-care amidst the chaos of these times might feel a little ridiculous, somewhat of a distraction, a bit like you are gazing inward when you need to be looking outward.

And, yes, some people might take it to an extreme, focusing only on their own needs and buying a ton of unnecessary products in the name of self-care.

But most of us aren’t like that.

In fact, many of us could probably use a nudge to remind us to take care of ourselves.

After all, how are we supposed to do the important things we are here to do if we’re worn out, frazzled, and just churning through endless to do lists?

So, please let me remind you that it is ok – in fact, it is necessary!- for you take care of yourself, to be kind to yourself, to meet your needs, to rest, to connect, to get away from the push to be bigger, better, more. *

You can take care of yourself for your own sake – after all, literally no one benefits if you forgo self-care. It’s not as if you sacrificing a brief rest means that someone else automatically gets that time.**

And you can do it for the greater good. It will be hard to be part of the solution if you are too worn out to deal with the challenges we are facing – alone and together.

Yet, even when we KNOW that self-care is a good idea, it’s hard for us to take that time, to make that effort.

Luckily, Action for Happiness has a whole calendar of small steps that can help you take good care of yourself this September.

And hopefully it can help you build even stronger self-care habits from now on.

Here’s the calendar:

a calendar of self-care tips from Action for Happiness
Check out Action for Happiness for more versions of the calendar as well as links to other resources. Image description: a calendar of daily tips for self-care. Each calendar block is either light blue, medium blue, peach, or red and the edge of the calendar is decorated with cartoon drawings of people doing self-care activities like meditaton, exercise, speaking positively to themselves, etc.

And here are three self-care tips from Action for Happiness in a video presented by Vanessa King.

A video from the Action for Happiness YouTube channel. The still image shows Vanessa King, a woman with her dark blonde hair pinned up in the back but with sideswept bangs in front, she is slightly smiling, and is wearing a red and white patterned shirt.

So, whaddaya think? Want to give Self-Care September a whirl?

*Ideally, you would have other people supporting you in this/taking good care of you but this post is about ‘Self-Care September’ not ‘Mutual Support May’ or something. Note: Mutual Support May should totally be a thing.

**Yes, I know there are exceptions to this. For example, if you pull a longer shift caring for your sick baby, your partner can have more time to sleep but that’s a short term benefit. It won’t actually be helpful in the long run if you end up getting sick because you are overtired or if you become so resentful that it creates friction in your relationship. Ultimately it would be better for you and your partner to alternate break times so everyone can take good care of themselves and each other.

Two small white cards with quotes on them Christine and the ‘just right’ loop
ADHD · motivation · planning

Christine and the ‘just right’ loop

Christine Hennebury

For the record, I am not Goldilocks and I don’t know any bear families but I did have oatmeal for breakfast so there’s that.

This is not so much a post as a bunch of slightly under-baked thoughts but I wanted to put this out there in case it is helpful to someone else who gets stuck in these kinds of loops. 

*****

So, I often find myself kind of stuck because I want to get things just right but I don’t know what ‘just right’ looks like.

It’s not that I am a perfectionist, per se, because the idea of doing things perfectly hardly ever comes into it. 

The problem is that I am always sure that there is a better way to be doing things or that I don’t have all the information I need or that I will be wasting my time if I proceed without being 100% certain that I am doing things in the best way.

Do I know that this is largely nonsense?  Definitely. 

Do I know that starting is often the best way to get started? Totally.

Do I know that I can change things as I go? Of course.

Do I still get stuck in an unconscious loop of ‘not yet’? Way too often. 

Am I trying to redirect that loop? Glerg. I am, I swear I am…once I recognize that I am in it, of course.

This kind of looping thinking happens to me in all kinds of areas of my life but, as I am sure I have talked about before,  I think I loop through it the most when it comes to exercise. 

I keep thinking I need the right plan. 

I keep thinking I need more time. 

I keep thinking that I’ll waste my time if I start without all of the information.*

I keep thinking that there’s no point in getting started if I am going to have to just start over once I get more information. 

See, again with the nonsense. 

Unless I have VERY specific goals with VERY specific outcomes, I probably don’t need a very specific plan. 

And as long as I pay attention to my form and I don’t overdo things right away, the details of my workouts and exercise sessions are less important than the fact that I fit more movement into my schedule.

So if I walked longer yesterday and then I use my rowing machine today and do some bodyweight exercises on Wednesday and swim on Thursday, it all gets me closer to being someone who has more energy, who moves with more ease, who is more up for the routine physical challenges of her days. 

And once I am that person (again), perhaps I will be looking for some specific plans and exercises to help me develop my skills or abilities in certain areas but for now I can just go with what works for me at a given moment.

In lieu of a specific plan, I can make things easier for myself by:

  • making a list of possibilities for myself so I can minimize the pressure of thinking of something to do when it’s time to exercise. 
  • make sure I have exercise clothes ready for when I want to get moving. 
  • put ‘exercise’ on my to do list and consider when it will best fit into my activities for that day.
  • make a few notes about how each exercise session made me feel so I have the information/encouragement my future self needs.
  • Being kind to myself about the nature of this whole process – there will be stops and starts, I will need to make adjustments here and there, and all of that is totally ok.

This would be a great spot for a satisfactory conclusion but since this is a bunch of under-baked thoughts, I’m going to leave any conclusions for later. 

PS – If you ALSO get stuck in these kinds of loops now would be a great time to let me know.

*All what information? Oh, I don’t know! It’s not a LOGICAL loop, it’s just a loop.

Planuary is a state of mind
ADHD · fitness · goals · habits · health · motivation · planning · self care

Planuary is a state of mind

Christine Hennebury

I’m pretty happy with how Planuary has gone this year.

I’ve managed to make some plans, test out a few ideas, and do some structured thinking about how I want to roll out some projects.

I haven’t actually taken a lot of action yet but actions are not the focus of Planuary anyway!

So, here are a few updates:

Journaling

Reflective journaling is going pretty well. I’m not getting to it daily yet but I am moving in that direction.

But if I don’t get to it in the morning, I need to find stronger ways to remind myself about it at other times of the day.

A dog is next to an e-reader on a bed in a dimly lit room. The device is glowing and lighting the dog’s face.
This photo of Khalee has nothing to do with my post but I thought it was funny because it looks like I interrupted her while she was reading. Image description: my dog, Khalee, is lying on her belly on my bed with her head raised. The room is dim and my ereader is glowing next to her, lighting the side of her face, and it kind of looks like she has turned from her book to look at the camera.

Yoga/Pushups

I did my yoga practice most days last week but my choices were hampered a bit by the fact that I woke up one day with a wonky knee.

So now I am working on my knee and my upper body and I am putting the ‘incorporate pushups’ part of the plan off for another week until my knee is less weird.

5 Extra Minutes of Movement

I have been doing pretty good with this one. I added 5 minutes of deliberate extra movement four out of seven days this week.

My knee is playing a role here but in two of those four days I chose extra seated movement so clearly it wasn’t the only factor on those other three days.

Maybe I need to say I will get 5 extra minutes of seated movement during the next week and see if that shift opens any mental doors to moving daily.

Next Steps

Since this is my last Tuesday post in January, this is technically my last Planuary post.

However, like the post title says, Planuary is a state of mind.

I want to keep this reflective, curious approach going throughout the year so I am figuring out what that practice might look like.

Last year, I decided that I didn’t really want to plan anything for the whole year, I just wanted to take it month by month and I’m sticking with that idea for 2025.

But I do want to keep checking in with myself and revisiting my ideas/plans/practices in a more structured but still Christine-friendly way.

So, I am starting with these questions:

How and when will I decided what is important for a given month?

How will I keep those things top of mind?

How will I record/reflect/track the details and feelings involved?

When and how will I write about them?

___________

Updates as events warrant. 😉

ADHD · fitness · goals · habits · planning · self care

Christine’s Planuary (Part 3)

Christine Hennebury

In my posts so far, I have mentioned two fitness/wellness related ideas that I want to develop throughout Planuary and I have had another one pop up over the weekend.

Here are the updates:

Reflective Journaling

My plan for jumping right into reflective journaling did not work…so far.

I really thought I was on to something with moving my journaling to the beginning of the day and creating a strategy for voice dictation and copying and pasting but then I had the most jumbled week in which ever single aspect of my schedule went right out the proverbial window.

A woman on a desk while papers fly through the air
Perhaps this photo illustrates how someone sabotaged my schedule last week? Image description – a woman is crouching on a desk while papers fly through the air around her

Honestly, if you had written my planned activities on pieces of paper, threw them in the air, and then turned on a fan, the resulting schedule could not have been more erratic than the one that last week generated all on its own.

I’m just glad that I am at a point in my life and in my medicated understanding of my ADHD brain that I didn’t end up blaming myself and going into a brain loop that would have also thrown this week into a jumble.

ANYWAY!

The issue here was that my plan hinged on taking time early in the day to do my journaling and then I didn’t have a single day in which I could follow my usual morning routine.

I did manage to journal on two days but that was only because I ended up with unexpectedly long waits in my car on a couple of occasions.

So, clearly I need a plan for relatively ordinary days and one for days when my morning has a different shape.

And perhaps I need to set a reminder for early afternoon asking if I have been able to journal yet.

I’ll circle back to this again next week.

Pushups?

And this is probably the part where you are wondering about the pushup plan.

That hasn’t happened either – and that’s ok because this is Planuary not Do-All-The-Things-uary (Instant forgiveness for the win!) but I am still moving slowly towards the plan.

The word Planuary written on an index card
A white index card with the word ‘Planuary’ written on it in capital letters and with golden yellow sparkles/dots surrounding it.

I have looked at a bunch of different pushup plans some of which I could immediately discount because I know what my brain is like. *

But there are two plans that are top contenders – this one that Sam sent me from Training Tall and this one that I have had bookmarked for ages from Buff Dudes Workouts but I will probably end up taking the stuff I like and making my own Franken-plan. **

A GIF of Frankenstein’s monster saying ‘Good Evening’
Theoretical depiction of my pushup plan greeting me. Image description: a black and white GIF of Frankenstein’s Monster moving his head upwards in greeting with text reading ‘Good Evening’ at the bottom.

And, of course, I had planned to start by picking a yoga practice to do daily and then add the pushup plan in afterwards.

I haven’t picked the yoga practice either but I have refined that plan instead.

I am going to do one of these four practices each day, depending on my time and inclination.

The first two are from Yoga with Adriene and the second two are from Heart and Bones Yoga.

Yoga For Neck, Shoulders, Upper Back | 10-Minute Yoga Quickie

Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Relief – Yoga With Adriene

Thoracic Spine and Shoulder Relief

Yoga for Thoracic Spine (mini class)

So, there are some steps forward on that Planuary plan, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Planuary Idea #3

I have fallen into a classic Christine/ADHD thinking trap, again.

I want and need to move more (because my body is feeling pretty cranky) but my brain keeps trying to figure out the ‘best’ thing to do instead of just doing something.

It keeps telling me I need to make a big plan before I start AND that I don’t really have the time or information to make that plan so I should start later.

And it also likes to toss in information about my various obligations during the week and how I will need to work around them (gee, do I really, brain? sigh!) and how I need to figure out the perfect time of day to workout so I don’t waste time or get my work plans derailed.

And it also reminds me that I walk the dog every day and that I do TKD twice a week so I am already doing *something* – which is true but doing those things is not addressing the body crankiness so I need another layer of activity, no matter what my brain is saying.

This is why I always say that my Go Team posts are just as much notes to myself as they are to anyone reading them.

I have literally been writing daily posts about how to avoid these kind of brainloops (among other things) and, yet, my subconscious was busy with all of this foolishness.

SO, I am shutting that down. I’m being kind to myself about it but I am still shutting it down.

I’m starting with 5 minutes of extra activity a day right now and I will add to that as I go on.

And, frankly, while 5 minutes is my low bar amount, I will probably often end up doing more because I know my obstacle is getting started, not keeping going.

The Current Plan

Yeah, that seems like a lot of things but they are all kind of small – 5-10 minutes of journaling aloud, 4-18 minutes of yoga, and 5 minutes of additional movement daily.

Even the longest version of that is only 35 minutes a day and it doesn’t even have to happen all at once.

And, of course, this is Planuary so the plans can (and probably will) change.

That’s just part of the process!

*For example, there is no way I will work up to 50 wall pushups before moving to the floor. I would end up spending more time fighting my brain to get started than I would actually doing the practice.

**The fact that I am neither Tall, nor Buff, nor a Dude means that the names of those sites/channels crack me up every time I look at them. I consider that a bonus, really.

Christine’s Planuary 2025 – Part 1
ADHD · planning · strength training · yoga

Christine’s Planuary 2025 – Part 1

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

Do I know how many parts there will be in Planuary? I do not.

I do, however, know that this is Part 1 so I am going to forge ahead from here.

By the way, Planuary extends far beyond my fitness/mindfulness/wellness plans but since this is not the “Christine talks endlessly about her life” blog, I’m going to stick to things related to our focus here at Fit is a Feminist Issue…mostly.

So, since I can’t seem to stop myself from overthinking at the moment, I decided to lean into it and just let my brain wander around until it settled on something that appealed to me as a possible new fitness practice to incorporate into my life this year.

And I settled on pushups.*

I really want to be able to do pushups easily and, more important than that, I want to *know* that I have the upper body strength to do pushups easily.

I don’t have a particular number of pushups in mind because the number doesn’t matter to me – I’m chasing a specific feeling.

A woman doing pushups outside.
This is the feeing I am looking for – it’s not that pushups are necessarily easy for her but she has put in the work and she knows she can do them. Image description – a woman in black exercise clothes lowering herself into a pushup. She is outside on a deck and the sun is shining.

And I think that seeking a specific feeling will be far more useful to me than trying to reach a certain number because seeking a sensation feels more like a meaningful practice than trying to reach an arbitrary target.

Of course, once I got that settled in my mind, I went into overthinking mode again. This time I churned up a bunch of thoughts about overdoing things, about how my shoulders and neck might not appreciate my pushup goal, and about how anxious I feel when my neck muscles are tight and and and…well, you all know how overthinking goes, right?

And that’s when I overthought my way into a possible solution (yes, this *does* seem to be a dangerous precedent, indeed.)

I’m going to pair my pushup work with some yoga for my upper body.

I know, not a groundbreaking solution, but hear me out.

I have trouble convincing my ADHD brain not to rush through stretching so even if I had great intentions of stretching after each pushup practice, I would soon be strolling along a road paved with those intentions and heading for a hell of my own making.**

BUT

I can definitely convince myself to do a 10 minute yoga sequence for my upper body every day for a month. My brain loves a month long challenge!

A woman doing a seated twist outside
This seems like a helpful sort of twist, doesn’t it? Image description: a woman, seated on a yoga mat outside, is doing an upper body twist so her lower body is facing the camera but her upper body is twisted away. Her right hand is on her left knee and her upper torso and head are facing to the left.

So, when I put those two things together – a plan to get used to pushups over time and a plan to choose an enjoyable yoga practice that will ease tension in my upper body – I may just be on to something.

Now, I’m moving on to Part 1(b) – choosing and practicing an upper body yoga sequence that I enjoy and then adding Part 1 (c) – choosing and following a pushup plan that seems doable.

Further updates as Planuary warrants.

*Yes, I have tried a pushup goal before and, no, it didn’t stick at the time but I know more now than I did then so it’s worth giving it a try.

**Is a hell of your own making the worst kind of hell? There is a case to be made here but I think the philosophers on the Fit is a Feminist Issue team are better equipped to discuss that than I am.

Go Team 2025: Make It Easy
advice · fitness · goals · habits · motivation · planning · self care

Go Team 2025: Make It Easy

Christine Hennebury

Hey Team,

As we all know, making change, planning change, adding things to your life or enhancing what is already going on can be very challenging.

So today, I am inviting you to explore ways to make the process of change a bit easier on yourself.

How can you make it easy to remember what you want to do?

How can you make it easy to plan your activities towards your goal?

How can you make it easy to get started at first and on a day-to-day basis?

How can you make it easy to adjust when you have to change your plans?

How can you make it easy to start again if you end up needing to take a break?

How can you make it easy to finish your exercise or meditation or wellness practice and then move on to the next event in your day?

Maybe you don’t need to answer all these questions at once but it’s worth considering which ones will be helpful to you.

Don’t worry about coming up with a perfect plan to make it easy, just the idea that it is OK (and strongly encouraged) to seek ease in this process will be helpful to you.

After all, the easier it is to remember what to do, to plan it, to get started, and to return to it as needed, then the easier the process will be overall.

Because change requires effort, because it can be very hard, it only makes sense to create ease whenever possible so you have more energy for the challenging parts.

If you can reduce the friction and the obstacles surrounding your plan then you’ll have more energy for the actions and activities that will bringing you closer to the life you want to create.

So, Team, I hope you’ll explore ways you can make the process of change easier and I hope you’ll be kind to yourself in the process.

Here’s your gold star for your efforts – both your efforts towards your goals AND your efforts to make it easy to do that work.

Go Team Us!

A small painting of a gold star on black paper.
A small painting of a gold star on black paper. The star is in the upper left corner of the page and there are solid lines and dotted lines extending from the star along the outer edge.
Goals, Contradictions, & Planuary
ADHD · advice · goals · new year's resolutions · planning

Goals, Contradictions, & Planuary

Christine Hennebury

This time of year is so full of contradictions.

January 1 is an actual new calendar year BUT it is also an arbitrary date for starting something new. It simultaneously has a lot of meaning AND no meaning at all, goalwise at least.

I love the idea and the feeling of a ‘fresh start’ on January 1 but I resent the pressure and the implication that I need to become a ‘new me.’ (I happen to like current me and I would like to add more good things to her life.)

I am drawn to creating plans, goals, and systems but I feel overwhelmed by the idea that they all need to start on January 1 (an idea that I reject but it still haunts me.)

I love the idea of big challenges (they help me focus) but I need small, recurring tasks if I want to keep working away at my plans (even though my brain argues with me that the tasks aren’t adding up to anything.)

I want to make a long-term plan so I have everything in place right at the beginning but I know that making a detailed plan means that my brain will overlap the plan with the tasks and file the project away as already complete.

I like having something to work towards but I know that focusing on the process rather than the result is the only way to actually add good things to my life.

For all of these reasons (and because I have zero capacity for planning in December), I usually refer to January as Planuary and use this month to figure out how I want to proceed throughout the year – with fitness, with work, and with everything else.

To prepare for Planuary, I’ve been reading and watching a lot of interesting advice about resolutions, goals, and the like.

And since you might also be in the space of contradictions and Planuary and figuring things out, I thought I would share some of the stuff I have found:

Here’s Jessica McCabe from How to ADHD with some advice about accountability. She’s mostly talking to people with ADHD but I’m sure there’s useful stuff for everyone in here:

Karin Nordin. Ph.D., from Body Brain Alliance has some interesting suggestions in this video about how to experiment with your goals before deciding whether to take them on. She suggests this approach as a December experiment but it could work as a Planuary experiment, too.

I really enjoyed this reflection from Kate C. Bowler on Instagram about how we can proceed imperfectly.

And this Instagram post from Kaitlin Curtice is ALL about the contradictions of this time of year.

And I like how this post from Dr. Kristin Neff brings self-compassion and values into the conversation about our plans for the year ahead.

So, with all of this information (and more!) at hand, I am ambling into January/Planuary with the idea of taking things day by day while I figure out the big and small pictures of how I want to expand and enhance (and simplify and streamline) my life in 2025.

AND, as I have been doing for the past few years, I will be writing a daily Go Team post to encourage you (and me!) to be kind to ourselves as we figure things out.

Whether you have your plans in place or whether you are ambling along with me, I hope you’ll keep me company along the way.

This isn’t exactly a Go Team post but it also kind of is, so here is our gold star for our efforts – our efforts to figure things out, our efforts to be at ease with what we haven’t figured out, and our efforts to be kind to ourselves either way.

a photo of a sparkler that has been lit and is giving off sparks and sparkles
I know, I usually use a drawing for our gold stars but this photo of a sparkler always makes me happy and it feels celebratory AND it has lots of star shapes in it so we’re calling it a gold star. Image description: a photo of one of those metal sparklers with flammable, spark-creating material on one end that people use to celebrate special occasions. This one has been lit outside and is giving off all kinds of sparks and sparkles that look like a cluster of gold stars. The background is dark and the metal stick at the bottom of the sparkler is slightly visible at the bottom.