The End of 2013 - Wrap Up

I set a few goals, or maybe after reading this article by James Clear, I should call them systems. Either way I made plans in 2013 to improve myself.

One of those plans was to basically press forward enduring in faith.

Another was to walk a 1,000 miles. I didn't come up with that plan until the end of April at which point I had walked about 20 or 30 miles. That left me with a lot of walking to catch up on before the end of the year.

I learned lots of things as I pressed forward walking. One was that despite the fact that the Mormon and Oregon Trail pioneers traveled 1,300 miles and 2,000 miles respectively, people who go on re-enactments will be lucky to get in 20 miles. I personally estimate 18 for the Trek I went on in June. It didn't help me much towards my 1,000, but I did gain experience that I am grateful for.

Other things I learned were about setting big goals and actually achieving them. Eating an elephant as it were.

My husband is the Merit Badge counselor for the BSA Personal Fitness Merit Badge. I have heard him say this before, but this year in the midst of walking 1,000 miles, it resonated. He tells the Scouts that most of us know what we should be doing and many of us have a plan that breaks it out into doable steps. But we get tripped in the next part.

We need to track the plan and make sure that we are actually doing what we planned to do and on course to complete our goal. James Clear calls this type of accounting feedback loops. The BSA calls it tracking your progress for 3 months. Mothers call it a pain in the neck, but regardless, it is a vital part of actually reaching a goal. (Not just over 3 month merit badges. Reading logs are the same thing.)

So often, we think that we are following our plan because we have made it and it seems like we remember doing whatever we said we would as often as we said we would. Unfortunately we haven't tracked it, and we are making up what we think we have done based on our plan not on actuality.

An example of this happened just over a week ago. I was at lunch with some friends. One asked how my walking was coming. Another who didn't know of the goal was very impressed with the 1,000 miles. She asked if I have a goal for next year. I do it is to exercise 525 hours over the course of the year. She quickly estimated how much she does, or thinks she does, and said, "Oh I do that. That shouldn't be hard."

Now here is the question I mentally put to her, "How do you know that is really what you do? Do you track it?"

Because having finished walking 1,000 miles last night on December 31 at 5:30pm, I know that it actually only took 300 hours or so to do that much walking. (Thanks to my dear husband who tracked it all for me. FYI - if you can find someone who loves to track things, who is also willing to do a lot of the work with you, it will be easier to finish the plan.)

I am sure that my friend thought to herself, "I go to the gym five days a week and I spend two hours." But does she spend two hours working out? Does she really go five days a week? What about the weeks when a kid is sick, or when they are on family vacation? How many hours are really spent?

Maybe she really spends 10 hours a week exercising, but maybe she only thinks she does. It is similar to using an eating log. Strangely when I actually do it, I lose weight. Just like when I walked between 3-8 miles five days a week, I got stronger leg muscles and trimmed inches overall.

But the process took all four parts

1. A knowledge of what I need to do and how to do it
2. A plan to accomplish it broken out into achievable portions
3. The will to do it
4. Tracking the progess

So I have a plan for next year. I'll let you know about it in the coming days. But in putting 2013 to bed, I want to remind myself of this...

• Making a plan is important
• Enduring even through stormy, nasty, cold weather is vital
• Keeping track of your progress toward the end goal is necessary
• Probably nobody is going to have a party for you when you finish (but if you planned Chinese takeout for dinner who cares)
• You will develop some good muscles for later use
• You may not lose anything, but you will gain boundless abilities and insights