“Why am I doing this!!?” I asked that question every day for two weeks. Before I could even get to the answer I had to wade through a bunch of reasons to quit.

“This is a waste of time!”

“Nothing bad will happen if I stop!”

“Nothing good is happening right now because I’m doing this!”

In July 2015 I was doing my own personal challenge. My goal was to get 1,000,000 steps in a month. I started on July 1. To reach that goal I needed to average about 33,000 steps every day.

Thing is…I knew these questions were coming. Before I started the challenge I expected the middle two weeks would be the hardest. The emotions that fueled the first week would fade and the real challenge would begin.

Reaching 33,000 steps every day is not easy. It requires more than five hours of walking. Put another way, I walked almost 17 miles a day. That’s a challenge, but the harder part was navigating through those reasons to stop.

The problem was none of the answers to those nagging questions were motivating enough to keep going. In fact, they were de-motivating.

“This is a waste of time!” Yeah…it sorta was. I could have used that five hours a day on projects around the house or spending time with my family instead of walking by myself.

“Nothing bad is going to happen if I stop!” This was also true. My fitness level was not going to plummet. I was not doing something that was serving other people. In fact, I could have used some of those hours every day to serve others. Wow…talk about a powerful reason to stop.

“Nothing good is happening because I’m doing this.” Again…truth. There really was no immediate benefit to walking almost 17 miles a day. My fitness journey already had plenty of momentum so I couldn’t even tell myself convincingly that I was “getting healthier” by doing this challenge. Thankfully, what lay on the other side of those questions was my real reason.

There is VALUE in choosing to do a hard thing and not quitting.

My history of goal failures was long. What I really wanted to know was if I had what it takes to stick with something hard. I had given up too many times in the past. Life is not easy and I kept coming up short when perseverance was needed.

It’s been almost five years since I took that One-Million Step Challenge and I still feel the impact. The question, “Can I do this?” has been answered.  Now I know I can do a hard thing without giving up.

And, you know what? That impacts not just me, but also the people I love. I want them to know I have what it takes when life gets hard.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY

If you don’t have a daily Fitbit goal, I want to challenge you to give it a try. It will help you create a fitness habit which builds fitness momentum and eventually leads to fitness transformation.

I recommend The 30 Day Fitness Challenge. This free guide will walk you through how to get started. It’s very easy.

If you don’t have a Fitbit I recommend the Fitbit Inspire HR. This is the Fitbit I use to track my 20,000 steps a day. The Inspire HR also tracks your heart rate and sleep so you get an even wider picture of your fitness progress.

(By the way…if you use the links in this article to make a purchase this blog will receive a small commission. It won’t add anything to what you pay, but letting you know is the right thing to do)

This blog is designed to help you embrace walking as a fitness activity. It’s sustainable, flexible, effective, and fun. Every week I post new articles with stories and helpful suggestions to Win at Fitness.

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