Since January 1, 1975 Robert “Raven” Kraft has run eight miles every day on the beach in Miami. That’s almost 16,000 days and counting. Raven has run through illness, injury, and even hurricanes.

The battles for fitness begins in your mind. That’s also where it ends. Most fitness journeys don’t get derailed by a game-changing injury, illness, or hurricane. They often get derailed because it gets difficult. And, fitness always gets difficult.

Decades ago, Raven Kraft decided to run eight miles every day regardless of the circumstances. He doesn’t wake up and wonder if he should run eight miles that day. Raven doesn’t look at the forecast, or check his calendar to see if he has time, or calculate how he feels. He shows up and runs eight miles. He knows one day the streak will end, but it won’t be his choice.

Raven Kraft has already won the battle for fitness. His daily run is simply the evidence of that victory…not the battle itself.

Would you like to win the fitness battle once and for all?

Every day this week I’m rolling out details of a special 90 Day Step Challenge to help you change your thinking about fitness from “I can’t” to “I can”. This Challenge will give you a solid foundation to build on and move forward. It will transform you from a fitness wannabe to someone with a fitness habit on their way to a lifestyle of fitness. I wrote more about that yesterday. If you missed it you can check it out HERE.

The heart of the 90 Day Step Challenge is setting a step goal and reaching that goal EVERY SINGLE DAY for 90 days. The key is setting the RIGHT step goal for you. If it’s too high, it will become frustrating and will ultimately end in failure. If your goal is too low, there will be no challenge and at the end you won’t feel like you’ve really accomplished anything.

The right goal should feel like a challenge 1 or 2 days a week.

To do this challenge you will need a step tracker like a Fitbit. That’s all I’ve used for six years and I’m a huge fan. My current Fitbit is the new Inspire HR. I wrote a review after my first week with it and you can read it HERE if you’re looking for a step tracker. It can be very frustrating if you’re doing a 90 Step Day Challenge that requires an accurate counting of your steps and you can’t rely on the tracker you’re using.

How do you set the right goal? There are three ways, depending on your circumstances.

1. If you currently don’t have a daily step goal you need to track your steps for seven days. Don’t do anything different. You need a true baseline of how much you currently move without trying to do anything extra. At the end of seven days, do some quick math to find your average daily number of steps. Add 500 to that average and that is your step goal for the 90 Day Step Challenge.

2. If you currently have a daily step goal, but miss it at least once a week, I would suggest keeping that as your 90 Day Step Challenge Goal. Those missed days are the 1 or 2 that already feel like a challenge and that’s what we’re looking for.

3. If you currently have a daily goal that you never miss then you can bump that up. If it feels like a struggle a couple days a week, then add no more than 500 steps to your goal. If you are not feeling any challenge at all then you could add at least 1,000 steps every day. Be careful not to make it too difficult.

4. If you currently are crushing a daily step goal, then maybe it’s time for you to supersize this thing for 90 days. What’s the next BIG number that would really challenge you for 90 days straight?

Before you lock down your 90 Day Step Challenge Goal there’s one more thing you need to do. Click HERE for that.

If you struggle with motivation to stick with fitness this blog will help. Don’t be intimated by the title. That’s my goal…not yours. But, my bigger goal is to help you start a fitness journey that has doesn’t stop and builds momentum. If you click FOLLOW (below on your phone and to the right and above on your computer) you’ll get an email with a link to each motivating article the moment it’s published.