What I learnt from walking 5,000 steps a day
Lessons on life, consistency and making small progress
Raw and Real Conversation
I have been exercising 6 days a week for more than 12 years now.
It includes strength training on 3 (alternate) days, cardio/yoga/abs on the days in the middle.
Come rain/storm/pain/progress, God has been kind to help me maintain that routine.
I also have been walking every evening for a similar time. It was so consistent that I never tracked my steps.
However, after the pandemic, my daily walking habit went for a toss. I was still exercising daily because I have adjustable weights at home. However, the joy of not wanting to get out made it increasingly difficult to form a habit when we were finally able to get out!!!
Anyhow, over time I realised I was missing walking so much. Despite I still managed to go out for a walk once or twice a week, the daily walking activity added much-needed rigour and thought process to life.
So in May 2024, I made a goal to walk at least 5,000 steps every single day.
First things first, I know walking 5,000 steps a day isn’t ideal. It is far from perfect.
However, my average daily steps were ~3,200 in April 2024. So I thought we could take a leap that is doable, yet not dreadful. (Fun fact: From Feb-Apr, I tried to get into the groove of 10,000 steps daily, but failed miserably. So this time, I started small.)
Reminds me of what my favourite James Clear says often, to focus on consistency more than intensity:
Driven my multiple failures towards my 10K a day program, I finally decided to do something I would do even on my worst days. 5K was the answer.
I decided this somewhere in the first week of May.
We started right away. I did get 5K done on most days, plus some deviations here and there.
Here are the average steps for the month of May:
Good for a start I’d say. Getting 90% of the desired results in first month is not bad.
In June, we almost hit the target, with 99% accuracy.
You would have seen so far that if there were days when I did not move much, I’d compensate on the few days that followed, to maintain the average. :)
After almost two months of not-bad consistency, two tailwinds happened in the month of July and August, when I was in meditation retreat centre for ~6 days from late July to early August.
The daily step count there, by default, was ~10K steps, even if you made no effort to “go for a walk.”
In July, I missed a lot of daily average walk days as well, but overall a good result in August with (almost) the right kind of consistency.
September was the month where I skipped 5K on fewer days, and by a lesser margin than previous months. The average is still lesser than July and August, which we will talk about later in this very blog, but it is a better way to see lesser dips in September as compared to June.
I still want to get 5K done daily no matter what, and that is what we are aiming for in October onwards, let’s see how things go.
However, looking at these graphs and numbers over the past 5 months made me reflect on some of the most incredible life lessons:
Dream big. Start small. Act now. It is Robin Sharma that said that, but I am glad I did not wait for birthday/new year/work anniversary to start this movement. This is the thing about things you truly want to do. There is merely zero resistance.
If you are failing consistently, there is a lesson. Like I ignored the lesson of small improvements and went straight to 10K steps, and failed multiple times. Small is good.
You just need a few great days for a good average: July and August are classic examples of it, especially August. I did not walk “more” on most days, but walked more than 2X on 5-6 days, and that made a LOT of difference. In life as well, we do not need magnanimous success every single day. Just a few things right, and you are set for an extraordinary life.
The huge lesson from September: A few bad days at the end ruin an overall great average. Like you could see in September, 3 days towards the end I was damn tired and did not walk much. It affected the overall 5.1K average of September thus far, and brought it down to 4.9K. Like marathon runners say, the hardest part of a 26.2 mile marathon begins after 22 miles. I’d extrapolate it to all other habits too.
Most importantly, you are most likely to stick to your habits if you love the process more than the reward of showing it off to people. It is ironical that I am showing it off, but I guess I have also earned it by not missing my morning exercises and also being consistent at it for quite some time now.
So, this was it, ladies and gentlemen :)
If you have any other questions on this process, do feel free to ask. I’d happy to answer.
If nothing else, I hope I have at least inspired you to start working on your goals, no matter how little progress you make every single day. It still is progress :)
Raw One-Liners:
Very unusual opinion but the background of your email screen hugely impacts your mood.
(Share this on Twitter)If you want to understand life, read children's books.
If you want to understand how messed up life eventually becomes, read books by people in their 20s–40s.
If you want to understand how to ingrain the wisdom of children's books into life, read books written by 50y olds+.
(Share this on Twitter)
Real Gratitudes
I have been averaging 5K steps a day in October so far :) :) :)
To the new people who have just started reading me. You all inspire me to continue when I want to give up.
To the old people who are still 4 or 5 star subscribers. Your stars teach me how nice it is to love a stranger like this :) It really means a lot.
On that note, I wish you enjoy your Navratri. I’ll see you all next week :)
Stay raw, stay real
Nishtha Gehija