(I heard the song I my mind a lot of the I was walking an a lot of time I was writing this… so…)

In fact, I did walk 5,047,082 steps in 2020. I turned 50 in 2020. The two are not as related as you might think.

I didn’t even have in mind a goal of 5 million steps at the beginning of 2020. You would think that turning 50 in January 2020 would have inspired big goals. It didn’t really. Sometimes I make New Year’s resolutions; sometimes I don’t. 2020 was a don’t year. (2021 is also a don’t year.) 

Yes, it is true that I had a lot more time to walk and a lot more interest in walking out my anxiety after March 13^th. Suddenly, my commute was 6 feet from my bed to my desk. Suddenly, I had to somehow guide my family and my committees into what were totally uncharted waters for me.

When I look at the Accupedo Pro App on my phone and consider the data collected, I notice a big jump from pre-July 1, 2020 and post-July 1, 2020. So, it wasn’t just the stay at home that started in March. It wasn’t just the stress of feeling adrift with no control. Something else changed – I realized I could make it to 5,000,000 steps the year I turned 50, and that spoke to my desire for symmetry.

Averages: 13,790 per day, 420,490 per month

Pre July, my average steps was 11,488 steps per day. From July to the end of the year, my average steps were 16,062 steps per day. 

While I am tooting my own horn here, there is also a lesson to be learned in not drawing conclusions while still looking for patterns. Correlation may not indicate causation, but it means something.

Lessons to Consider:

1. I spent more time on vacation during the second half of the year than the first half of the year. When I compare the data with my calendar, I realize: It is a lot easier to get 20k steps in a day when I didn’t work that day.
2. Resetting goals didn’t work the way it is supposed to. In July, I upped my daily goal from 10k steps per day to 12k steps per day. In fact, I had averaged over 12k steps per day for the previous two months. The very day I upped my step goal was the first time I got less than 10k steps since April. I reset the goal to 10k and didn’t miss 12k for over 100 days.
3. As the weather gets colder and windier, it is harder for me to walk outside. I just don’t like the wind in Virginia. The wind bugs me less in Iceland, but I am not IN Iceland. (It is the first year in 4 years that I didn’t travel through Iceland. I miss it.)
4. Both outside walking and elliptical machine sessuibs inside counted as steps. That might have been cheating. Since it was my goal and my steps and me rewarding myself, I don’t consider it cheating. Cheating is in the eye of the beholder.
5. 5,000,000 steps in a year sounds great when you say it that way. To me, it is much less impressive than 6 miles a day averaged for a year. 5,000,000 steps over a year is an average of 6 miles per day. The way you talk to yourself matters.

What is my goal this year? Who knows. I didn’t make it a goal to walk 5,000,000 steps in 2020 until I had completed one third of it about half-way through the year. I am still somewhat amazed I did it.

I keep walking. And ellipting. And thinking about the best part out of this is giving myself permission to making my steps a priority. Sometimes it is FamilyWalk, but I now have permission to look at my Boys and say – this walk is MyWalk. My choices for the thing I want to do right now have more weight as I plan my day.

So the best results aren’t necessarily the goal you make before starting. It is the process of revising the goal along the way and realizing what else you gained.