Category: self care

a decorative artwork with a photo of a woman surrounded by a variety of patterned sections Sick Day(s): How Christine Spent The Weekend
fitness · rest · self care

Sick Day(s): How Christine Spent The Weekend

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I had a few “off” days at the end of last week.  I couldn’t really tell if I was just tired, if my allergies were acting up, or if I was getting a migraine. 

It didn’t even occur to me that I might actually be sick until Saturday afternoon when my head suddenly weighed about ten thousand pounds, my throat was sore, and I started sneezing.

Luckily, I didn’t have many plans this weekend and I could easily shift things around to make room to rest.*

Here’s what that looked like:

I wasn’t quite in ‘lie-around-and-read’ mode so I spent a long time playing with paints and markers and paint markers.

While drinking approximately 1.5 million cups of tea, of course. **

a tea mug
My favourite Tarot card – The Empress – on a mug sprinkled with gold stars. You probably could have guessed this was mine. 🙂 Image description: My mug is sitting on a folded red cloth napkin and both are resting on my worn wooden kitchen table. The mug is white with a black handle and black interior. The white parts are sprinkled with gold stars and in the middle is a black and white image of The Empress, a woman in a crown and flowing robes with a scepter in her right hand.

I had a lot of fun with this video from Art Therapy with Sana

A video from Art Therapy with Sana called ‘Feeling Overwhelmed? Try this Klimt Pattern Art Practice. Still image shows a patterned painting in shades of red, brown, and gold. On the left side of the image is a woman in red robes, the woman’s face is cut from a magazine. The rest of the image is made up of vertical sections framed in wavy lines and each section is filled with a different pattern – spirals, ovals. dots. Behind the first artwork is another work that features a collaged image of a woman with patterns drawn around her in gold and black.

Here’s what mine turned out like:

a small painting that's fairly abstract except for a drawing of a woman's face between two sections of the drawing that kind of look like a robe.
My version of the first painting from the art therapy video posted above. The colours are shades of red, purple, yellow, pink and gold that work well together (I hope!) Near the centre of the painting I have drawn a woman’s face looking out between two sections that form a robe. The rest of the painting is formed from wavy lines that mark off different sections that contain different patterns of squares, circles, dots, lines and spirals.
a decorative artwork with a photo of a woman surrounded by a variety of patterned sections
My version of the second painting from the video. I cut out a picture of a woman in a blue and green patterned dress – you can see her from the waist up- she is leaning towards her right shoulder and looking down. The rest of the painting is divided into sections filled with patterns – squares, spirals, grids, circles, and squiggles, all patterned in green, yellow, and blue.

And since I like to listen to podcasts while I draw, today I chose Old Gods of Appalachia – a horror anthology show with incredibly strong writing, world-building, and performances. (Yes, I do like spooky stuff!)

When my head got too heavy I tried the exercises in this video. They helped a lot.

One Move to Quickly Relieve Sinus Congestion – YouTube

And I borrowed some moves from Joelle here:

Yoga for Sinus & Cold Relief – Feel Better in 10 minutes!

When I needed a nap on Saturday, I did Yoga Nidra: Yoga Nidra For Sleep & Rest | The StillPoint

And on Sunday, I fell asleep to some ghost stories from the Classic Ghost Stories Sleep Compilations.

My husband thinks it’s pretty funny to fall asleep to ghost stories but the stories on Classic Ghost Stories are more ‘creeping dread’ than ‘scar them with the horrors’ kind of tales and Tony Walker is an excellent narrator.

My weekend wasn’t all art and ghost stories though, I also did my usual stuff – walking the dog, making meals, puttering around, but at a much slower pace than usual. 

It is no fun to be sick but being ‘too sick to go out’ and ‘not up to doing much at home either’ was a great reason to prioritize rest, creativity, and taking good care of myself. 

What are your go-to activities when you are feeling under the weather?

*As I write this on Monday afternoon, I am feeling better than I was on the weekend but still not great. I actually ended up having to reschedule a dentist appointment AND a mammogram so I could keep my germs at home instead of taking them on tour to various medical facilities.

** Don’t worry, it wasn’t all caffeinated. I alternated between Cold 911 from David’s Tea, Ginger Peach, Chocolatey Chai, Wild Sweet Orange, (no caffeine so far!) and black tea (there’s the caffeine!) with the occasional foray into boiled water with lemon, candied ginger, and honey. I also drank regular old cold water.

A black and white tarot card – the three of cups – depicting three women in long dresses holding wine glasses in the air Adding a little woo to my fitness journaling
ADHD · fitness · habits · self care

Adding a little woo to my fitness journaling

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

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.

Six rectangular tiles on a green cloth. Each tile has an image on it that will be used to interpret answers to a question.
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.

A tarot card for 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.

a photo of a collaged heart with text reading February to the bottom right Christine’s Two Experiments For February
ADHD · goals · habits · health · self care

Christine’s Two Experiments For February

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

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.*

a small drawing of the number 2
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 blood pressure (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!)

A drawing of a large gold star with smaller stars inside it Go Team 2026: Keep Going (at your own pace)
ADHD · advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Keep Going (at your own pace)

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

Here we are at the end of January!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We don’t have to be in a hurry.

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

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

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

We can go big or work piece by piece.

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

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

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

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

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

Your efforts matter.

You matter.

Keep being kind to yourself, pretty please.

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

Go Team Us!

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

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

A drawing of gold stars sprinkled over a dark blue background Go Team 2026: Go YOU!
advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Go YOU!

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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!

A drawing of gold stars sprinkled over a dark blue background
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.

A drawing of a bowl of tiny gold stars Go Team 2026: It all adds up
ADHD · advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: It all adds up

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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

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

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

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

Your Efforts count!

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

Even if it takes you a long time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s ok.

It’s GOOD even.

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

I mean, who does that help?

The plan doesn’t care if you do it.

This is all about YOU not about some plan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those efforts all add up.

They all count.

They all matter.

And so do you.

Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please.

Go Team Us!

A drawing of a bowl of tiny gold stars
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.
A painting of a bunch of overlapping shiny gold stars Go Team 2026: Make An Inspiration Station
ADHD · advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Make An Inspiration Station

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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.

Oh, and you can include some things that make you spite-y if you find that motivating.

Here are some ideas:

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!

A painting of a bunch of overlapping shiny gold stars
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?

A drawing of a cartoonish gold star on a swing Go Team 2026: Try Small Solutions First
ADHD · advice · fitness · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Try Small Solutions First

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

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

For me, this idea came from reading one of Julie Morgenstern‘s organizing books. I read this a long time ago so I don’t remember which book it was and the details may be fuzzy but the spirit is there, so let’s roll with it.

From what I recall, one of her clients was struggling to keep her shoes organized. She was always kicking them off next to her bed and then she would get annoyed with the pile of shoes that would accumulate there.

The complicated solution would be to train herself to put her shoes elsewhere or maybe to create a habit of returning her shoes to the front closet each morning. Both of those solutions are valid but they will take time and effort and probably a lot of experimenting.

Julie Morgenstern, however, had a much more direct solution.

She suggested putting a shoe rack next to the bed so her client’s shoes could be easily tidied and organized.

Now, there could be lots of reasons why either of the first two solutions might be better overall but you can’t beat the shoe rack when it comes to an easy and efficient solution to the shoe pile, can you?

It may not be a perfect solution, it may not be a forever solution, but it does address the immediate problem (messy shoe pile) without requiring a lot of effort and it lets the client choose where she wants to put her energy right now – creating a tidy corner or making changes to her behaviour.

Ultimately, she may want to change her behaviour but the shoe rack won’t prevent that. In fact, if she’s not being mean to herself about the messy shoe pile, she will probably have more energy to apply to behaviour change.*

When it comes to adding new practices to our lives or adjusting current practices, we tend to default to a behaviour change type of solution when often a shoe rack type of solution would do.

I think it’s worth trying some simple, direct solutions to our challenges first, even if it’s just to free up some energy for other changes and solutions we know we’ll want to try later.

So, if you are always forgetting to bring your water bottle to the basement when you do your workout – put a safe container of water and some clean glasses in your workout space.

If you have trouble making yourself do your stretches each evening, arrange a call with a friend and stretch while you chat. Your stretches might not be as deep but they’ll be done.

If, like me, you find that having your equipment in the basement prevents you from using it, consider moving it to a space in your house that feels easier for you.

If you keep your journal on your desk but you find it hard to sit there and write at the end of the day can you move your journal to your bedside table? Or keep a separate notebook there? Or use the voice notes on your phone? Or make jot notes whenever you can and do more detailed journaling at a time that feels easier? Can you change the time that you journal?

There is nothing wrong with choosing a direct solution if one is available.

Our practices are about our well-being, our fitness, our peace of mind, they aren’t about checking off boxes on an imaginary list of perfact behaviours.

There are lots of ways for us to move towards the lives we want, and it’s ok for at least some of those ways to be really straightforward.

So, Team, I’d like to invite you to consider what sorts of simple solutions might be available to help you address your challenges.

Or to put it another way, if you are faint a challenge, consider asking yourself if a shoe rack will help.

As always, here’s your gold star for your efforts today. As you can tell, today’s star is absolutely delighted with you and with your hard work.

And whether you are working on small solutions, big solutions, or anything in between, please remember that your efforts matter and so do you.

Please be kind to yourself out there.

Go Team Us!

A drawing of a cartoonish gold star on a swing
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.

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.