31 Days of Taking Good Care

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle. ~Author Unknown

A few months back I came across a great little website that offered a challenge called "31 days of Self Care" where participants are challenged to do something nice for themselves every day for a month and blog about it.    I contacted one of the site facilitiators and learned that this event occured in January and that they have a similar challenge each month with different topics like creativity and thankfulness. 

I thought this was a fabulous idea, and decided to create a self care girl version to begin in July.  The self care version looks like this:

• Set a goal.   It can be anything from walking a certain distance each day of July to spending 20 minutes a day in quiet contemplation.   Maybe you have been meaning to finish a quilt or to clean the garage, your goal may be to spend 30 minutes a day on that.   You get to choose whatever would be most meaningful in your life!
• Post your goal on the self care girl facebook page before July 1st (Look under discussions tab)
• Report back each day during July to provide status on your progress.

Studies show that people who write down their goals and tell others about what they are trying to accomplish are more successful in achieving thier goals.   Writing the goal down and announcing it gels your commitment, but the second part of telling others is that it lets other people encourage you and help you be successful.  

Having a daily goal is also important, because it allows you to refocus your energy on the goal each day.   I am currently participating in a program to walk 12,500 steps each day.   That is a lot of steps!  The true goal is to walk almost 500,000 steps in 6 weeks!  If I focus on the 500,000 I will most likely fail.   The 12,500 is definately a challenge, but not so daunting and I am finding it is quite do-able for me.

Another helpful hint: I am sure that most of us have set out with a goal like this:   Lose 10lbs in one month.   The problem with a goal like that it that we don't really have control of a parameter like our weight.  There are many factors that can interfer with weight loss, it is just not a good measure of progress and it can be quite defeating to get on the scale after losing 5lbs only to find that you are up 1lb after working your butt off all week! (Yes I speak from experience.)   Instead I recommend that you focus on a daily action that is within your control:  30 minutes on the Wii or 1 hour walk each evening- both can result in weight loss in the long run- but the activity is your goal and not the weight.  Got it?

Take Good Care!