I’m a few days late for the new Action for Happiness monthly calendar but I really love the idea of Meaningful May.
I’m not one of those people who insists that every single moment must be saturated with meaning but I am one of those people who thinks that any given ordinary moment could be meaningful – and I firmly believe that meaning is worth seeking/creating.
So, obviously, I’m a fan of the tiny daily ideas that this month’s Action for Happiness calendar provides for seeking meaning in the ordinary.
I like all of the suggestions but I find the idea of making ‘a list of the things that matter to me and why’ especially appealing.
Which Meaningful May tip appeals to you the most?
A daily calendar for May 2026 from Action for Happiness. The individual blocks are pink, red, light blue, or darker blue and there is a tip for seeking meaning typed into each one. The edge of the calendar is decorated with simple cartoon images of things like a cup of tea, a paper airplane, a person on a bike, or a few planets. At the bottom of the calendar the words ‘Happier. Kinder. Together’ appear in green.
PS – If you want to hear a bit more about Meaningful May, check out the Action for Happiness video below “How to find meaning in the past, present and future. Meaningful May with Vanessa King.
A video from Action for Happiness featuring Vanessa King, a white woman with shoulder length hair and a bright expression on her face looking directly at the camera with a few plants and an old black and white photo of a couple on their wedding day. on the right ide of the image is text reading “Finding Meaning: 3 top tips with Vanessa King.”
Do I owe you a thinky post about World Creativity Day? Yes, yes, I do. Alas, last week was made of chaos, headaches, and migraines and it did not get done. I have safely emerged from that maelstrom but I am writing this on Monday and my solo storytelling show is tonight and my focus keeps wandering from my thinky post. Since I would prefer that my brain stay in one piece, I am writing about something else today and I will get back to the creativity one soon.
On Sunday evening, I made a list of things I wanted to have done by the end of this week. There were a few work tasks, a couple of household things, and, oddly enough, one rather vague item – become stronger.
I don’t even really know where that last one came from but I found myself intrigued.
I mean, becoming stronger is an ongoing goal for me so this isn’t completely new but something felt different about having it on my list in that format.
Become stronger.
Become stronger.
When I phrase it like that it’s not a list of exercises or a bunch of tasks or a potential goal, it’s an open loop.
And my brain, the same one that fights with me about exercising or completing tasks*, is ALWAYS intrigued by an open loop and it starts in with the questions…
What does ‘become stronger’ mean?
How can I become stronger in a week?
What would that involve?
How will I know if I become stronger?
Why do I even want to become stronger?
Who do I want to consult on this?**
When can I get started?
See how quickly my brain dug in on this? It is totally invested in solving the mystery of how to become stronger this week.
And I’m going to let it figure it out as we go.
After all, I know that I can’t get a lot stronger in one week but that’s where the vagueness of ‘become stronger’ works out well. I don’t have to get a lot stronger, I just have to move the needle.
And, in fact, when I got up Monday morning my brain was already reminding me that we had to work towards getting stronger today.
So things are off to an interesting start!
This is what I got when I searched for ‘vague’ in the image library. I guess it’s accurate? The connection is value at least. Image description: a black and white photo of a dark-coloured horse (I think) on light-coloured ground that could be a field or snow or a beach. The horse is in the distance in the centre so it is very small relative to the size of the image overall. It is maybe 1/8 of the height of the image and 1/12 or the width.
Well, I won’t be able to get a lot stronger in one week but I will be able to
*Yes, I do often refer to my brain as separate from me, apparently it’s an ADHD thing.
**In this case the ‘who’ will be a combo of fitness people on YouTube and Instagram but I really wanted to get a who question in there so I phrased it as who instead of saying ‘What videos will I watch?’
Today, as you may have guessed, is World Creativity & Innovation Day and I have a kind of thinky post underway for later today but for starters, I have a few questions for you.
My answers will be in my later post along with ideas and resources about the intersection between fitness and creativity.
1) What kind of creative practices do you use in your day to day life? (Creative problem solving counts!)
2) Have you used creative scheduling approaches to make it easier to fit fitness activities, movement, or wellness activities in your life?
3) Do you stick to the same fitness routine or do you get creative with your movements, exercises, and activities?
4) Have you ever used exercise to boost your creativity?
5) Have you ever found a creative solution to a fitness-related problem? (like figuring out a way to accomplish a difficult exercise or finding a way to a piece of equipment in a useful but unexpected way)
No pressure, of course, but it would be cool if you could put your answers to at least one of these questions in the comments.
I’ll see you later with my thinky post.
PS – Did you notice that I creatively repurposed one of my December number images for today’s image? 😉
I don’t know about how things are going for you but my brain has been rather uncooperative for the past few weeks.
It differs from day-to-day – sometimes I can do what I planned, sometimes it feels like my ADHD meds aren’t working at all, and sometimes I feel like I get up in the morning, get spun around for a few hours, and then I’m dumped into 9:30 at night without any sense of what kept me feeling busy all day.
Needless to say, this has not been a fun experience at all.
And I think I could just wait out the tiredness, the frustration, and the brain fog if my capacity wasn’t all over the place. The fact that I can do some things with ease (and speed) and other things (that are normally straightforward) feel so difficult and convoluted that I either can’t get started or I end up moving so slowly that I get on my own nerves.
The worst thing is that I know the things I need to do to feel better, I am just having such a hard time making myself do them.
Now this is the part where some people would be saying “You just gotta push yourself. Try harder! This is just resistance.”
I’m voting no on that.
Sure, maybe there is some resistance in the mix of my challenges right now but pushing myself or telling myself to “just” try harder* is not going to be the solution.
Instead, when things are tough like this, what I always need to do is to figure out a way to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to do what I can when I can, and to rest when I need to – all while being very kind to myself about the process.
I don’t need to push myself or to try harder, I need to pare things down as much as I can.
And if you are struggling in any way right now, I invite you to do the same.
If you aren’t up to a full yoga practice, spend a few minutes in Savasana on your mat.
If you can’t write in your journal, do a little voice dictation into your phone or do some drawing in your notebook.
If you can’t tackle that big project, is there a smaller section that feels doable right now? Is there someone who can help you with it? Can you do anything to adjust your own or other people’s expectations around this project at the moment?
If you have been waiting to respond to an email until you have composed the perfect message, can you send a ‘Here’s a quick answer but I’ll get back to you in a few days with the details.’ type of message?
If you are having trouble eating the way you would like to, is there a quicker solution that keeps you fed and isn’t taxing on your brain? (Someideas )
If you can’t stir yourself to go for a walk outside, can you walk in your living room?
If your strength training routine is beyond you at the moment, can you do some mobility exercises or leg lifts or some calisthenics instead?
You can see where I am going here, right?
When things are challenging but you know you will feel better if you take action, you don’t have to summon the energy to do the big version of something – you can do a smaller version. You can pare things down until that activity feels doable.
You can be kind to today-you and tomorrow-you at the same time by scaling your actions to match your current capacity.
And this applies at all times, not just when you are struggling. It’s ok – it’s ENCOURAGED – to meet yourself where you are rather than being annoyed with yourself for not being somewhere else.
So, Team, however today finds you, I wish you ease and I invite you to consider whether you need to reduce the pressure in any area of your life by paring things down.
And I’m offering you this gold star in celebration of your efforts to take good care of yourself.
Go Team Us!
Isn’t this a cheery star? I’m going to prop her up next to my computer. Image description: A small painting of a happy-faced gold star with lines in the bottom left that kind of make it look like she jumped into the middle of the white card she is drawn on. The card is propped up between the keys on my black computer keyboard.
*Christine shudders in neurodivergence. Never EVER tell someone with ADHD that they aren’t trying hard enough – you can’t see the effort they have to put in to focus their attention, corral their working memory, and try to get their executive functions to, you know, function. It’s exhausting and takes A LOT of effort – and that’s BEFORE they actually start the task.
I’m probably not alone in having stops and starts in my fitness routines. My favourite themes over the years have been about starting small, doing less, getting over injuries with small steps. And that’s where I am again after deciding that I would not participate in winter running this year. It’s been a long winter. I got out there today after a four-month hiatus.
Since I’ve never really managed to stick with a consistent running routine for more than a few months at a time since just before the pandemic, I feel as if I am starting at the beginning.
Today was the first nice day of nice spring running weather, where I could run in shorts and a t-shirt. And so I chose it to be my day one of the beginners running program, Couch to 5K.
Couch to 5K is probably the most widely used learn to run app. It’s a nine-week program designed to get someone from not running at all to running for 30 continuous minutes over the course of three runs a week for nine weeks.
It starts easy and that is just what I want after a long hiatus. Week one has three runs the same: 5 minutes warm up walk, and then 8 intervals of 1 minute of running followed by 1 1/2 minutes of walking, and closing out with a 5 minute walk.
I’m going in with beginners mind because despite having many kilometres under my feet, I feel like a newbie. And I’m open to learning something new about what I can do and how I can do it.
I have let go of what I “used to be able to do,” and am focusing on what I can do today.
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. 🙂
I like snow. I like cosy evenings. I like the way the air smells. I like bundling up to go outside. I’m a big fan of sweaters. I like seeing light on the snow. I even like shovelling snow (up to a certain point!)
And even on the most basic level, I just like the variation from other seasons of the year.
But by the time February comes, it is wearing on me.
It really starts at the end of January when time seems to both stretch and contract so I have really long days but really short weeks and then I somehow get unceremoniously dumped into February.
February takes forever and it is always a big struggle for me. I have extra trouble figuring out my time, my projects, and my capacity. It’s almost like my ADHD meds don’t fully work that month and everything is especially difficult and frustrating.
For example, this year I had a plan to do two small things in February. I was going to do a wall set for one minute a day and I was going to add more vegetables to my lunch
I did pretty well with the lunch vegetables but the wall sit? That just went wrong.
The wall set was somehow both too big a task and two smaller task at once. It felt like I could fit it in anywhere in my day., That sounds like an upside but if I can fit it in anywhere in my day then I’ll end arguing with myself all day about when to do it.
I realized that it’s hard to do a wall sit when I have socks on because I end up, slipping on both the flooring and the carpet while trying to hold the position.
But I could never convince myself to put on my sneakers to do a one minute exercise.
In fact, February fills up my brain so much that the sneaker idea didn’t occur to me until more than halfway through the month.
And I never did convince myself to put the sneakers on.
I noticed this February pattern a few years ago, and I have tried a variety of solutions to cope with this annual bewilderment. Things have improved, but there is still a ways to go and I am hampered by the fact that I often can’t see things are going sideways until they have reached an annoying level of sideways-ness.
Anyway, as you can, imagine, I was really glad to see March.
I’m not saying that March 1 is magic but I’m not NOT saying that.
Once we switch to March, it feels like my brain takes a deep breath and suddenly there’s a bit more space to figure things out.
You can’t tell now, of course, but this is where a single spring flower grows and blooms each year. I love watching for it as spring goes on. Image description, a photo of the back of someone’s fence with snow on the ground and a few evergreen trees about halfway between the viewer and the fence.
And once the clocks change, I see even more of an improvement in my perspective, my overall mood, and in my capacity to make useful plans and to follow through on them.
So, I was thinking about all of those things last week and then I overheard a conversation some friends of mine were having at TKD.
(This had nothing to do with martial arts, it had to do with spring.)
One of my friends is a farmer (she also runs a farm-tech company) and she said that there had been signs of spring for weeks
She said that we probably hadn’t even noticed, but the signs are there – more birds are singing, there are probably more bugs showing up in our houses, and that there are lots of things going on underground that we won’t see for ages.
And when she said that I realized that not only had I heard more birds and seen more bugs, but the sun was feeling a bit warmer and the ground felt somehow different than it had two weeks before.
Recognizing all those things felt so great that I started looking for more signs.
And I noticed that the tips of the branches of the trees were looking a little thicker, like growth has started.
Doesn’t that kind of look like buds at the tip of those branches? I’m not sure at what point a bud can be officially called a bud but something is going on right there.. Image description: A photo of a couple of the branches of the lilac tree in my front yard. At the tips of the branches are the suggestion of buds, even if they’re not buds yet. The branches are in the very foreground and in the background, you can See snow on lawns a few people’s driveways and some of my neighbours houses in the background.
And something about how the snow is sitting on the ground has changed. Even though we had more snow over the weekend, there’s something different and somewhat spring-y about it.
See:
It felt so good and so cheering to take a stroll today. A photo of my dog Khalee on our street on a sunny somewhat springlike day. The sun is behind us and she is standing where she can be seen in the photo. You can only see me as a shadow, and you can see the shadow of the leash that I’m holding that she is on the other end of. Her shadow was visible too, of course. There’s a small snowbank nearby and she’s standing on some greyish asphalt. She is a light brown, medium size dog. She’s mostly facing away from the camera, but she’s turned back a bit probably wondering why I stopped walking.
Even the colour of the sky seems deeper recently. it’s not quite a spring or summer sky, but it’s getting there.
I love seeing that blue get stronger. A photo of several leafless trees and a couple of evergreens next to a fence with snow on the ground. The sky behind the trees is an almost spring colour of blue with a few long white clouds
So with things getting ready to shift outside, it’s no wonder that things are also shifting in my brain.
In the last week or so, I’ve noticed myself thinking a bit more long-term about exercise plans again.
And it feels far easier to get myself to go for a walk, to do some yoga, or to just move around in general.
I was on a writing retreat this past weekend and instead of sitting at a table to work I was motivated to sit on my yoga mat on the floor instead, working on my lap, on a low table, or on the floor itself. That felt like a huge improvement because I know how much more likely I am to move and stretch and take good care of myself while I’m working if I’m seated on the floor.
No, I’m not saying that I couldn’t do any of these things three weeks ago, but now that first step, the initiation of that task, is decidedly easier.
I didn’t realize it had been so long since I wrote a Go Team post.
Sure, it has only been since January but I always find February to be such a slog that it feels like it has been aaaaaaages since I offered up some encouragement for us all.
So, Team, today I am inviting you to find ways to be even kinder to yourself.
Maybe that means giving yourself a break.
Maybe it means taking an extra rest day.
Maybe it means giving yourself a pep talk – or seeking someone else to give you one.
Maybe it means giving yourself as much time as possible to work out.
Maybe it means speeding things up a little today.
Perhaps it means using the punching bag instead of going to Zumba… or vice versa.
Perhaps it looks like more time meditating or journaling or listening to calming music.
Perhaps it looks like exercising on your own or maybe it looks like finding company.
Maybe it looks like packing your gym bag in the evening or rolling out your yoga mat before you go to bed.
Perhaps it means going to bed early or staying in bed a little longer in the morning and maybe it looks like the opposite of that.
Look, I know that there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world and that you are probably also facing a lot of challenges in your own life. In the face of all of that, it can seem pretty insignificant to bother trying to be kinder to yourself.
After all, what difference does it make if you journal or go to Zumba or take a bit of extra time with your tea?
It makes a BIG difference.
Sure, it’s not going to address all of the challenges you are facing and it’s not going to fix all of the problems in the world but it sure as hell is going to make it a little easier for you to do what you can to face those challenges and to help out in the world.
(And you can be damn sure that being less kind to yourself won’t make anything better.)
Choosing to be kind to yourself, to give your body and brain the things that you need, will not only be helpful to you in the moment but it will also leave you with more energy and more capacity to engage with others, to seek solutions, to be who you want to be in the world.
And sure, my examples above are all related to fitness and well-being but that’s because this is a fitness blog.
I hope you will apply the same ideas in every facet of your life.
Self-kindness is not self-indulgence, it is self-support.
It is not wasteful. It is not harmful. It is not pointless.
You matter.
Your efforts matter.
Being kind to yourself matters.
Please give it a whirl at your next possible opportunity.
And, as always, here is your gold star for your efforts.
Wishing you ease, my friends.
Be kind to yourselves out there. Pretty please.
A star I made during a ‘Relaxing Creativity’ workshop I was leading on Monday night. Image description: a gold star drawn in shiny gold ‘art crayon’ against a pink background that is decorated with black lines that follow the same curves as the edges of the star. The drawing and the star are trimmed in black.
Bonus:
This video cheers me up every time I encounter it on Instagram. I thought it might do the same for you.
An Instagram post from addytok2022 with a closeup view of a little girl’s face. She has blonde hair in a topknot, and she is wearing pink glasses, and she is looking intently at the nail polish bottle she is trying to open. Her nails are painted bright pink and she is wearing a black sweatshirt with the Grinch on it.
I’m sure I have mentioned it before but when I first started taking my ADHD meds, I immediately noticed an increase in my ability to pause before doing something.
Previous to that I didn’t exactly jump into every single task, but I would often find myself in the middle of doing something without having thought it through clearly.
After 10 years on medication, I am used to a certain capacity to pause and choose a response.
But I have noticed an increase in that capacity when I am practising mindfulness on a regular basis.
And, of course, I have also noticed that it is really tricky for me to practice consistently. (It’s like I have ADHD or something. 😉 )
Small, daily activities like the ones on the ‘Mindful March’ calendar from Action for Happiness really help me to keep practicing and to keep seeking that extra mental space.
Here’s what the calendar looks like. (You can also download your own copy from the website or add it to your own Google Calendar.)
The calendar for Mindful March from Action for Happiness. Image description: each block of the calendar is brightly coloured in shades of green or yellow, and there is a type written mindfulness tip in each one. The edges of the calendar are decorated with cartoon images of things related to the tips like someone playing with a dog or waiting for the kettle to boil to have a cup of tea.
And here’s a YouTube video about Mindful March from Vanessa King, Head of Psychology from Action for Happiness.
Finally, I took the photo below after a mindful experience I had one morning when the dog decided we were getting up at 5:30. I was annoyed at being up before I was ready and at having to open the door and let cold air in. But when I looked out at the moon and how it was shining on the snow and just felt how crisp everything was, I actually took a couple of deep breaths of that cold air and felt pretty good.
Paying attention to where I was, actually being there instead of moving on to the next thing, made a big difference to that moment, to the overall feeling of the start of my day, and to my day as a whole.
Every mindful moment doesn’t reverberate that way but that one certainly did.
Now, I’m not necessarily recommending getting up too early and being quite chilly as a mindfulness practice but you could do worse.
A photo taken of the corner of my patio, my neighbor’s fence and our leafless tree, one very early dark morning when the moon was bright. In front of me, the moon is shining on the snow and casting shadows of the trees and the fence and light from a streetlight is adding to the glow. Everything looks crisp and still and peaceful.
If, like me, you’re a habitual maker of lists, you know how enjoyable it can be to make one. I want to tell you about the two kinds of lists I tend to make.
The first type is a detailed, four-quadrant list that is legibly handwritten in a spiral notebook. It’s a strategy I learned from leadership training years ago: draw two lines bifurcating the left and right, top and bottom of the page. Top left: IMMEDIATE to-dos. Top right: TODAY to-dos. Bottom left: TOMORROW to-dos. Bottom right: LATER THIS WEEK. Now there’s four lists! 🤩
This 4-list system has helped me triage competing demands and deadlines in a busy life schedule. As the top half got completed by the end of the day, I’d feel that little list-hit of dopamine. More satisfaction would come when tomorrow’s items were ALL scratched off and became today’s.
My second style of list is a scrawl of half-expressed ideas onto the back of a mail envelope, program flyer, or receipt. These lists get folded and stuffed into my pockets or become bookmarks, only to be discovered later, partly deciphered partly forgotten.
Over the past few months I have not had the discipline of a tidy schedule. My flâneuse-style wandering has reflected in my list-making. I tried to make a type 1 list, but items didn’t easily sort when my “today” and “tomorrow” have been so fluid. Instead, the type 2 lists catch my daily thoughts before they dissolve, little messy scraps that reveal how I am figuring out what shape my life takes next.
List Type 2: A handwritten list on the back of a Saje sales receipt: CAAT, 4-piece snaps, unemployment (CHECK!), City of London, MOI. What does it all mean? I hardly know myself.
Adam Grant has a WorkLife episode on procrastination where he suggests writing a to don’t list to make visible what’s might be delaying one’s progress and help get yourself out of your own way. That’s not a bad idea, especially when big life transitions mean the work of processing hard feelings, managing stress, and trying to find small wins.
So I’m giving a type 3 list a try. Moving into my next life phase, which doesn’t yet have neat time-bound quadrants, I write neatly down the centre of the page:
Don’t be hard on yourself.
Don’t fail to appreciate what you have.
Don’t seek certainty at the expense of your joy.
Don’t not trust yourself. (Double negative, but you get it.)
This third type of list has turned out to be important, not because it tells me what I need to do but because it reminds me who I want to be.
