Over the years I’ve attempted to form exercise habits in spite of my distaste for it. I’ve employed a number of psychological tricks over the years to aid in forming a physical fitness regimen. It has never lasted, however. You may even recall my experiment a few years ago where I set out to walk at least 45-minutes a day for 40-days in a row through the use of a Paper Clip Chain. That worked for about 42 days. I never got to the point where it was a habit or where I really wanted to do it. I’ve tried several other similar things over the years and nothing has ever stood the test of time.

A number of things have conspired to inspire me to add regular physical activity to my life. I normally don’t get a lot of physical activity during my day. I sit at a desk and work on a computer most of the day and I haven’t had any strong desire to be more physically active.

I recently read The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance by Tony Schwartz, and one of the thing he talks about in that book about how our bodies affect our overall work. The book is about brining balance in to all areas of our lives for maximum energy, engagement, and productivity. It’s certainly not a book on health, diet, and exercise, but there are a couple chapters related to this. In chapter 7 he writes, “Experts say we need twenty to forty-five minutes of exercise three to six days a week…” After reading that, it has been in the back of my mind as something I needed to start doing again.

I’ve also shared about how I’ve been dealing with depression in my life. As I’ve talked with others, some have indicated that regular exercise also plays a role in regulating the chemicals in the brain that are related to depression. Some have shared that they can really tell a difference if they don’t work out for a few days. So, I thought that exercising might help me as well.

Along with depression, the medicine that I’m on has a known side effect of weight gain. In fact, I gained 3 pounds the first two weeks that I was on it, and I made a strong effort to eat less because I knew this was a likelihood. I’m already quite over weight and I don’t need anything else to add to it.

So, I’m trying something new now, and it is working so far. A couple weeks ago I decided to go for a 1-mile walk around my neighborhood right after I got up in the morning. I didn’t enjoy it, but it did seem to make me feel better throughout the day. The next morning I changed the route a little bit to a 1.2-mile route that took me about 24-minutes. This was a more challenging route that takes me over steep rolling hills which provides some nice intervals during the time I’m walking. This is the route I’m doing now.

I’ve decided that I’m only going to do this on regular work days (typically Monday through Friday) and not on weekends, holidays, or when weather doesn’t permit. And I’ve decided that I’m not going to feel guilty on those days that I don’t go. There is a good chance that I’ll get more physical activity during the regular course of the day when I’m not working as well.

Another thing that has changed this time is that I’m not doing this to lose weight. I certainly would like to lose weight, and I hope this will help, but weight loss isn’t my goal; I also don’t consider my walks to be a tool for weight loss.

So far, these three things have helped to solve a couple problems with my past experiences. First, in the past I’ve made my walks to be at least 45-minutes to 1-hour; that’s a long time! By cutting that in half to 20- to 25-minutes, it’s much more agreeable. Second, in the past I’ve made it an everyday event with no room for exception. By making it a workday only thing, I can look forward to breaks on weekends and holidays. Third, by eliminating the goal of weight loss I’m not looking for results that I may not see every day.

More than anything, I’m doing this because I seem to feel better because of it. Last Friday I slept later than usual and thought that I would just skip my walk. I felt drawn to go ahead and walk anyway, so I just went later than usual. I don’t know how to describe the feeling exactly, but it is kind of like that feeling where you know you need a shower or need to brush your teeth–you just feel icky if you haven’t done it. I feel physically icky when I don’t walk on the days I should now.

A word to my critics: You may be thinking that 20- to 25-minutes walking isn’t enough exercise. That’s OK. What I’m doing is certainly better than nothing. You might even say that it walking isn’t challenging enough. The route I take is over rolling hills which provides some extra resistance. Also, if you know me in person, you recognize that I weigh nearly twice what the charts say I should. So, I’m moving a lot of extra weight on that walk as well. If you can imagine walking this distance over rolling hills while carrying someone on your back who weighs about the same as you do, you can get idea for what my walk is like. It’s a pretty good work out in my opinion.

So, why am I sharing this? I know how difficult it has been for me to add physical activity to my life over the years. I’m hoping that by sharing what is currently working for me that others will be encouraged as well. Perhaps something similar will work for you as well. Also, by sharing this publicly, it provides a certain amount of accountability–which is always a great motivator. If I’ve inspired you to try something like this too, let me know in the comments! Happy walking!

My History in the Boy Scouts of America and Activity in the Merit Badge Program

I was very involved in the Boy Scouts of America program from 7th grade through 12th grade (12 to 18 years old). The path to Eagle Scout played a major role in shaping me and preparing me for my future.

One of the things I liked most about scouting was the merit badge program. I think there were 105 available merit badges at the time. I earned 25 merit badges in all including 11 that were required for Eagle. To illustrate the broad range of areas in which merit badges are available, my merit badge sash included badges for: Basketry; Model Design and Building; Firemanship; Rowing; First Aid; Camping; Fishing; Scholarship; Emergency Preparedness; Communications; and Citizenship in the Community, Nation, and World. I believe this broad scope of learning opportunities helped me to develop an interest in all sorts of learning and made me a very well-rounded person by the time I turned 18 years old.

How Does the Boy Scout Merit Badge Program Work?

There are seven ranks in Boy Scouts: Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle. Although any scout may earn any merit badges he wants at any time, a certain number of merit badges are required for the Star, Life, and Eagle awards. This provides motivation to earn them.

Each merit badge has a set of requirements. The requirements for each badge vary greatly but are designed to allow the scout to develop and demonstrate at least a general working knowledge in the area. Merit badges are by no means an indication that the scout is an expert in the area, but rather that he has done enough research and application to have an understanding or working knowledge in the area. For a complete list of merit badges and requirements, visit MeritBadge.org.

Once a scout decides he wants to earn a badge in a particular area he would tell his Scoutmaster. The Scoutmaster would then help the scout find a qualified person to serve as a Merit Badge Counselor to help the scout with achieving the requirements for the award. While the scout would do much of the research and work on his own, he still had to meet with the counselor to demonstrate his knowledge and skill.

After the scout completed the requirements to the satisfaction of his counselor, the merit badge would be presented at a Court of Honor–a ceremony to honro scouting achievements. The scout would then add the badge to his merit badge sash–part of his uniform that showed off his accomplishments to his fellow scouts.

Merit Badges Get Replaced in Adult Life

After scouting, there really isn’t a close replacement for merit badges. Sure, we can: read books; take classes; attend seminars; join organizations; earn certifications, licenses, and degrees; and learn as we generally experience life. However, there is nothing for adults that comes close to the fun, excitement, and stress-free opportunity available in the Boy Scout merit badge program.

What I’d Like to See In An Adult Merit Badge Program

• Available Badges – While the Boy Scout program currently only offers 121 different merit badges, I think there could be an unlimited number of merit badges in an Adult program. Here are a few ideas just off the top of my head: Cooking, Barbecuing, Lawncare, Automotive Maintenance, Microsoft Word, Coin Collecting, Podcasting, GTD–Getting Things Done, Online Marketing, Travel, Guitar Playing, Dog Ownership, Astronomy, Local Politics, Cake Decorating, Blogging, Personal Finance, Child Rearing, etc…
• The Requirements – Just as in the Boy Scouts, the requirements shouldn’t be designed to make someone an expert, but rather to ensure that the learner has a good working knowledge in the area. I believe that almost anyone who is an expert in a particular area will likely be quite capable of writing requirements. There should be some sort of review process, possibly by other experts in the field, to insure that there is some consensus that the requirements meet the working-knowledge objective and are also written in a consistent manner and style. The requirements also need to be reviewed regularly to ensure that they keep up with current technologies and social trends.
• Counselors – Unless things have changed in the last 25 years, there are no set requirements for merit badge counselors. When I earned my Computers merit badge, my Algebra teacher was my counselor. When I earned my Leatherwork merit badge, a fellow scout with leatherworking knowledge was my counselor. For many of them, I simply presented my work and demonstrated my skill to one of my scout leaders. I think that in an Adult Merit Badge program, adults should be able to seek out a counselor they feel will be able to properly assist them and answer their questions.
• The Award – The adult merit badge counselor would indicate that a particular candidate had completed all the necessary requirements for a particular award. The learner would receive some sort of certificate or other token to indicate he or she had completed the requirements. Perhaps even an icon or logo that could be put on their own web site.

How Would an Adult Merit Badge Program Be Managed and Administered?

Perhaps the reason nothing like this has been done before is because there is no system to manage and administer such a program. The Boy Scouts of America has a massive network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers to administer the program on a one-on-one level. While many people will serve in this capacity to prepare young people for their future, I’m doubtful that many adults would be likely to volunteer their time to make a similar program successful for other adults.

In this day of technology and the Internet, it might not be a huge task to create a web-based program through which it could be managed and administered. It could be a social networking type of site similar to LinkedIn, FaceBook, and MySpace. Each participant would have their own personal page to display their awards, locate others with similar interests, and to generally form community around their demonstrated skills and knowledge.

Talk with Me People!

So, what do you think? Do you think Merit Badges for Adults would be a good idea? What ideas do you have to execute the idea? How would you see something like this affecting your life? Let me know in the comments!

I joined Toastmasters to improve my public speaking skills, and I’ve really learned a lot. To earn this award, I gave 10 different speeches. I could choose my own topics and wrote my own speeches, but each speech had a different goal such as helping me to organize my speeches, include vocal variety, use body language, utilize visual aids, and inspire my audience. I’ve been speaking in some capacity for years, but these exercises have taken my speaking to a whole new level.

I’ve really enjoyed working with all the other club members too. In fact, since I work from home most of the time, the club members kind of fill the social role in my life that my co-workers used to when I went into the office every day.

My next goal is the Advanced Communicator Bronze award. For this award, I got to choose two manuals from the Advanced Communicator series of manuals. Each of these manuals has five speeches for me to complete. The manuals I chose are Technical Presentations and Interpretive Reading. I chose Technical Presentations because I’m a computer instructor and I’m giving technical presentations all the time, so I think these skills will help me on my job. I chose the Interpretive Reading manual just because it seemed like fun; it’s also something none of my fellow Toastmasters have done yet and I hope it will provide some extra variety for our members as they listen to my speeches from that manual.

If you are looking for a great way to improve your public speaking or leadership skills, I can highly recommend Toastmasters.  If you live in the Thomasville, NC area and are available for an hour at noon-time every Monday, I’d like to invite you to our Toastmasters Club in Thomasville. We meet for one hour every Monday at noon at the Thomasville Public Library. Just email me or leave a comment if you need more information.

I usually endeavor to choose my words very carefully and mean exactly what I say—nothing more and nothing less. If I congratulate a coworker on a promotion and tell them they deserve it then they know that I really think they deserve it. If I criticize an idea then I’m criticizing the idea, not the person that presented the idea. I’m not perfect with this, but I think that I generally do a good job with it.

Along with this, I realized that I use some words and phrases because they convey something other than what I really think and feel inside. I wanted to remove these phrases from my vocabulary:

I’ll Try to: This is perhaps one of the most meaningless phrases in the English language. I like the way Yoda said it in Return of the Jedi, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Often, someone will ask us to attend an activity that we don’t want to attend so we say, “I’ll try to make it.” We say, “I’m trying to lose weight.” We say, “I’m trying to do better.” Usually, the truth is that we aren’t really trying–at least, we aren’t trying to succeed in the areas we say we are trying, but rather we are trying to fail. If we were to be honest, we would more often say, “I’ll fail to make it”,”I’m failing to lose weight”, and “I’m failing to do better.”

Jesus taught us to, “Let your Yay be Yay and your nay be nay.” But because we are afraid of commitment we use loose and indecisive phrase like, “I’ll try”. At best, we should instead say, “I might” which gives no impression of commitment at all. If we don’t intend to do the activity at all, even “I might” is an outright lie and should be avoided. In the Bible Belt we often say, “Lord willing” as our cop out. Just because we don’t do something that we said we would do doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the Lord’s will–we shouldn’t blame our lack of integrity on Him.

We usually use this phrase to avoid making someone else feel bad, but ultimately we damage our own integrity in that other person’s eyes. We don’t want to fail in their eyes. We’re afraid to fail because we don’t understand what failure is or what failure means. We learn from failure. It’s a positive thing. Somewhere along the line failure has developed a negative connotation and we’ve become afraid of it. We fear what people will think if we say we are going to do something and then don’t reach our goal, so we use “try” as a wishy washy way to get out of it.

I’m Busy: What does this mean? Isn’t every one I know “busy”? The drunk on the bar stool is “busy” getting drunk; a housewife says she is “busy” watching television. Why do I think that anyone else cares that I’ve been busy. If someone asks me how I’ve been, wouldn’t it be better to say, “I’ve been doing …”? If someone asks me to do something and my initial response would be to say, “I’m too busy”, wouldn’t it be better to let the other person know what is more important to me than their request? This leads me to my next phrase.

I Don’t Have Time: Comedian Steven Wright used to say that “Everything is walking distance if you’ve got the time.” Saying that we don’t have time is just a socially acceptable way of telling people that their needs are not a priority for us. If someone asks me to fix their computer it’s a lie for me to tell them that I don’t have time. I have 168 hours a week that I could devote entirely to fixing their computer. The truth is that fixing their computer just isn’t a priority for me.

I have worked especially hard on eliminating this phrase over the past two years, and to my amazement, people seem to greatly appreciate it. When I was asked to serve as an officer in my Toastmasters chapter, I told them that other things in my life were a higher priority right now, and therefore I couldn’t give the position the focus and attention it deserved. When people ask me to fix their computer I explain that while I may handle my own computer issues, it’s not my area of expertise. Then I refer them to someone else who can do a better job in less time. If they are just trying to get a “freebie” this also lets them know that I realize they feel their money is more valuable than my time.

Tomorrow: I tend to think that our minds don’t really know what we mean when we say tomorrow. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Tomorrow never comes.” I think that when we tell ourselves, “I will get start the xyz project tomorrow” that our brains take that literally. When the next day comes, our brain still thinks, “I will start the xyz project tomorrow.” It is much better for us to say a definite day or even day and time when we postpone an action; for example, “I will start the xyz project first thing Wednesday morning.” Friday evening we may say, “I’ll clean out the garage Saturday morning.” When Saturday morning comes, we may consciously choose to renegotiate this agreement with ourselves, however, if we say, “Tomorrow I’ll clean out the garage, we can always tell ourselves, “I said tomorrow, not today.”

Spend Time: Time isn’t spent. it can be shared. It can be wasted. It is always invested. We don’t spend time watching television, we invest time watching television or waste time watching television. When I talk about doing things with my wife I always say “I’m sharing time with my wife”–to say that I’m “spending” time with her implies to me that I’m giving something away that I can’t get back. All investments provide a return—either positive or negative. What kind of return am I getting on the investment of my time, right now, as I write this article? What kind of return have you received on the time you’ve invested reading it?

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No. It’s actually Day 31. The truth is that I fell off the wagon back on what would have been Day 24 and Day 25.

On Sunday, August 12th, I taught Sunday School at church, so I decided to polish my lesson that morning instead of walking. I knew that I could make it up later in the day. During the afternoon, temperatures were near 100 degrees, so I decided to wait until it cooled off in the evening. Our dog had been having stomach problems for a few days and by Sunday evening she was dehydrated and unable to keep water down. We had to take her to the Veterinarian Emergency Clinic about 8:30pm, and we didn’t get back until nearly midnight. I had missed my chance to walk during that day.

On Monday, I had my own little pity party over not making my 40-days-in-a-row goal, so I didn’t walk then either. 

On Tuesday, I decided that none of that really mattered very much anyway, so I started walking again. I stressed a little bit over whether I should start back over at Day-1 or not. Over the next few days, I realized that it was no longer about reaching the 40-days-in-a-row goal; it was just about forming the habit, and after 21 days, the habit had been formed. I could break the habit if I chose to, but that would be my choice. I think the 2-day break was a positive thing because it gave me an opportunity to prove to myself that I had really formed the habit.

While walking yesterday morning, I got another great revelation. I don’t have to improve at exercising. Exercise doesn’t have to be challenging or competitive. But I do need to it regularly, and there is benefit in doing so.

When I first started this experiment, I felt that I needed to increase my walking speed, or continually push myself to walk further and to walk more strenuous routes. In retrospect, that was a ridiculous thought. Here is my current perspective. If someone didn’t bathe daily, and wanted to build the habit of showering every day, they wouldn’t likely try to scrub a little harder every day, or try to spend a little longer under the water each day. They would simply bathe at whatever level fit their perception of good hygiene and be done with it. If someone wanted to develop the habit of getting their email inbox to zero every day, they wouldn’t try to get more email so they could process more, nor would they be likely to race against the clock to see if they could get to zero faster than the day before. They would probably be content to just get to zero every day and form the habit, and the associated comfort level, of having an empty inbox.

So, where did I get this warped idea that I had to continually improve at exercise? I was meditating on this during my walk this evening, and the best I can tell, it was taught to me in Physical Education class during my 12-years of school. We weren’t taught to just be active, nor were we taught the benefits of being active at a moderate level. We were taught that to compete against each other, and ourselves, to continually improve. We were taught that by the end of the semester we needed to be able to run faster, or do more push ups, or make more goals than we could at the beginning of the semester.

I was academically aggressive, but I was physically challenged. Physical fitness wasn’t one of my strengths–pardon the pun. It was no problem for me to be able to read a higher level, or do more complex math at the end of a semester, but it was a real challenge for me to do better physically. And it was a challenge that I didn’t like. My poor marks in this area reinforced that.

Schools offered math and English classes for students that had various strengths or weaknesses in those areas, but physical education classes were for everyone. The starting quarterback for the football team, and the kid that was 50-pounds over weight and 6 inches under tall, were likely to be in the same P.E. class. The quarterback learned to continue excelling in his strengths, and the over-weight kid learned that he wasn’t cut out for sports and exercise.

If a student was poor at math, he was placed in a class where he could continue to use math, but at a lower level. If a student was poor at reading, she was placed in a class where she could continue to read, but at a lower level. I believe this may have caused many of those students to continue using the math or reading skills they did have, long after they left school. Students that were poor at physical fitness, on the other hand, were never taught the benefits of continuing to do some physical activity every day, even if it wasn’t at a high level. We were never taught that it was OK to walk for 45-minutes every day. In fact, if we walked around the track when we were told to run, we were scolded and ridiculed by both the teacher and our peers.

There is some challenge to my daily walks, but mostly it’s a matter of just getting started each day. Even if I never get any faster, or make my routine more challenging, yet I walk at least 3 miles every day, I will have walked over 1,000 miles at the end of a year, and probably burned an extra 200,000 calories. That’s no small accomplishment!

If someone didn’t read well, but read 5 pages in a book each day, she would read over 1,800 pages in a year, or probably about 6 or 7 books a year. According to one survey, 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school, and 42% of college graduates never read another book. Even at a very moderate pace, a poor reader can reap major benefits by reading a small amount each day.

It’s very liberating after all these years to finally realize why I’ve always hated to exercise. Now that I have come to terms with my own weaknesses in that area, I don’t have to compare myself to others, yet I can still reap some benefits of daily exercise. Some people may be fine running for an hour a day, or lifting weights, or playing basketball. I don’t have to measure up to that. I’ve found an activity that works well for me. I’ve joined the ranks of people that exercise daily, even though I’m no athlete. Little by little, over time, I’ll even do more than many people who consider themselves to be athletic. I have the habit of walking every day, and it feels great!

A couple weeks ago I bought an Olympus WS-300M Digital Voice Recorder. I had been having a lot of great thoughts during my walks, but didn’t have a real good way to capture them. I had my Palm T|X in my pocket, but I couldn’t very well use the notepad while I was walking. I also had my cell phone in my pocket, but the voice recorder on it was just too clunky to use. I own a micro cassette tape recorder, but it is bulkier than I wanted to carry around with me. I knew that I needed to get a small light-weight digital voice recorder. I didn’t really want to spend hours trying to figure out which model was best, so I depended on a friend. Back in January, Matthew Cornell posted his Notes on using a digital voice recorder for taking reading notes. In that post he talked about the research he had done and why he chose the Olympus WS-300M. I didn’t see any reason to do all that work again myself, so I bought the same model. Thanks Matt!

Most professional tend to agree that if we do any activity for 21 days in a row that it will become a habit. I am now 2 days past the habit forming stage. I set a 40-day goal, which will give me an extra 19 days of confirmation to myself that the habit has been firmly established. I chose 40-days because, throughout history, 40 has been a number associated with testing and completion.

I have noticed that over the past few days it has actually been much more difficult for me to walk. Part of that has been due to the intense heat wave in our area, but I think there have been other reasons as well. I also haven’t been eating very healthy in the last few days. I have eaten more high-carbohydrate foods such as french fries and bread, I’ve eaten more sweets and deserts, and I’ve even drank some beverages with both sugar and caffeine in them. I tend to think that my diet has been the primary reason that my body has felt tired and my joints have felt stiff. I’m sure that when I would eat like this in the past that it had a negative effect on my overall feeling as well, but I didn’t notice it because I didn’t have a single point that I could focus on to reveal to me how much of an effect it had.

In this sense, the habit of walking has served much like a compass for me. When I am eating well, the walk is easier and my body feels better. As I eat more poorly, the needle of the compass shifts, revealing how much of an effect those poor diet choices actually have.

This past week I was traveling for four days, teaching a class near Nashville, Tennessee. I’m usually there at least once, and sometimes twice, a month, but I rarely leave the little area between the hotel and the office because they are right next to each other. Since I had four different walks this week, I trekked out in a different direction each day. It was really nice to explore the area and see some area I’ve never seen before. I even found some new restaurants that are within walking distance–of course, as Stephen Wright says, “Everything is walking distance if you’ve got the time.”

When I’m at home, I usually walk the same route, and walk it in the morning. When I’m traveling, I typically walk in the evening. This affords me some time to change gears after teaching all day. I also tend to walk further when I walk in the evenings because I don’t usually have time-sensitive things to do in the evenings. I walk in the mornings on my last day because I know I won’t have any other opportunity to fit in an hour for walking that day. Because I have to be in class at a certain time, that walk is usually only an hour long. When I walk in the evenings, it’s not uncommon to walk for two hours or more.

Overall, I don’t feel that I’ve changed much in the last two weeks, but when I look at those things I can quantify, I can see a lot of changes in a small amount of time:

• I’ve lost five pounds.
• I haven’t made a conscious effort to change my eating habits, but I’ve noticed that I’m eating less and making healthier choices. If I really want a desert, or a bigger portion, I’ll get it, but I find that I want these much less than before I was walking daily.
• I’m sleeping better and sleeping less.
• I’ve shaved 8 minutes off my regular 2.7-mile walk around my neighborhood–what used to take me an hour now takes me 52 minutes.

I’ve been thinking about some of my reasons I’ve been particularly successful with this goal. I think the biggest reason is because I’ve made it the perfect size for me. I’ve allowed a lot of flexibility as well. I think that most of us make our goals far too rigid when they don’t have to be. Then we beat ourselves up and get discouraged when we don’t meet those goals. My overall goal is to, “Walk for 45-minutes for 40 days in a row.”

• It includes a relatively short time frame that I ought to be able to work into most days, regardless of how busy I may be.
• I can exceed the specified time frame if I want to, and I have exceeded it every day, but the minimum that I allow myself is very doable.
• It’s not dependent on any particular location. If I had added, “on a treadmill” to the goal, then I would limit myself to only those times and locations where a treadmill was available. By keeping the goal flexible I increase my options and also the likelihood that I’ll be successful.
• I can walk any time that works for me. If I had added, “first thing every morning” to the goal, then that would also be a limiting factor that would discourage me the first time I over slept.
• The goal isn’t dependent on many external pieces. I don’t need much special equipment or a special location. I do need to travel with my walking shoes, athletic socks, and t-shirts now, but other than that, I don’t need much else to be successful. I’ve already proven that I can walk in the rain (after last Friday’s thunderstorm), but I could also walk the halls of a hotel or a local mall if I needed to.

I think there is a clear lesson here that when we are building a habit, we need to be very careful to make those steps the perfect size for us, with the perfect amount of flexibility so that we will stick with them. What have you discovered about  the flexibility with your own goals?

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When I posted on Tuesday evening about Day 5, I was out of town; a friend and I had just walked 6 miles round-trip for dinner. It was very encouraging to have this friend with me this week.

Wednesday evening, we went to downtown Naperville and walked 3 miles in about an hour on the Naperville Riverwalk. I really enjoy walking beside water. When I was in 8th and 9th grade, we lived in Long Beach, North Carolina (now called Oak Island). I could walk on the beach for hours–and I still can when I get the chance to go there. I can do the same thing walking through the woods. I guess I just love being out in nature. Naperville’s Riverwalk is a nice bit of nature nestled inside a nice small town.

On Thursday I knew that the class would be over at 2:30pm and I had a 6:06pm flight out of O’Hare. I wouldn’t get home until around 10:30pm, so I knew that I would have to walk early in the morning. I told my friend that he was welcome to meet me in the hotel lobby at 6:00am if he wanted to. When I arrived, he was already there.

When we walked outside it was sprinkling rain, but just a little bit. I hadn’t brought my poncho, but I always keep a plastic sandwich bag in my wallet. I put my Palm and my phone in the sandwich bag so they would stay dry even if it started to rain harder. A few years ago, I had a Palm drown on me in an unexpected downpour–I’ve carried a sandwich bag in my wallet ever since.

We had planned to walk for an hour around a residential neighborhood that is near the hotel. About 40-minutes into our walk, the bottom seemed to fall out of the clouds. It was raining extremely hard, lightening filled the sky, and thunder filled the free space in the air between the raindrops. We were already headed back to the hotel, but after 20-minutes of walking in this downpour, we were as soaked as if we had jumped into the hotel pool fully clothed. I think some of the hotel staff had a good laugh at us as we came in the door.

I had completed my goal for the day though and learned that regardless of the circumstance, I can force myself to push on through. That’s a powerful lesson to learn when you’re building a habit. Most of us slack off at the first sign of difficulty. If we can push through though, we will be much stronger later–smaller challenges will be easy to overcome and we will have more strength for the bigger challenges.

This morning I woke up at home in my own bed and I still didn’t really feel like going walking, so it’s not a habit yet. My first thoughts were, “I need to get up and go for my walk.” I know that I’m moving in the right direction because my mind is expecting me to walk, regardless of whether I feel like it or not.

When I returned from my walk this morning, it felt really great to double the length of my chain by adding FOUR paper clips onto it. Speaking of the chain, I was just reading Zen To Slim: A Simple, 5-Step Weight Loss Plan by Leo over at Zen Habits. The article is well worth reading. One thing he says about exercise is:

It’s important that you try to do it every day. Mark your successes on your calendar — gold stars always work well — and try to keep the marks going every day. If you can do short, easy workouts, and mix up the exercises a little, you can do it every day.

Some of you are starting to post in the comments about how you are starting to build new habits and how you are tracking your progress with some sort of chain (even if it’s marks on a calendar). If you’re inspired to join us in this experiment, drop a comment and let us know!