Fry Your Chickens Friday - LOHAG - Part Two

The Evolutionary LOHAG

Last Friday's we talked LOHAG (Little Ol Hairy Audacious Goal). Specifically we talked about planned LOHAGs - the series of projects my wife and I worked on in 2019 when the Cleveland Browns convinced me to give up football.

Today we talk about what I call the evolutionary LOHAG - or 

The great walking LOHAG of 2020.

Every year I take the week between Christmas and New Years and do a review of the prior year and the goals (BOHAGs frequently) for the upcoming year (more on the process later).

Every year I have several physical goals. And every year I have the easy one (easy to write that is): Get at least 10,000 steps every day.

Here's how it went:

January was an easy month - because I was fueled by the New Year's Resolution. I went to the YMCA and walked on the track. When I traveled I walked through the airport. I fly Delta through Atlanta, Detroit or Minneapolis. All three of those airports have nice areas for walking. I put at least two hours buffer between flights. That means a nice walk and a snack or meal. 

February was also fairly easy - there was a trip to Seattle, which meant two things: 1) Airport walking as discussed above and 2) Early morning trips to the hotel fitness center. Any time I travel to the Pacific Time Zone for less than a week I try to stay on Eastern Time. Early to bed and early to rise. 

Then in March we had the Covid lockdown. The Y was no longer an option. Our office fitness center was no longer an option. But my wife and I did have an option. We live on a country road. So every day we took a walk. The one good thing about the lockdown was we weren't trying to be three places at once. We had time to enjoy a walk, which we did every day.

By the time we got to April I thought "I'm 25% of the way there!" And the weather was nice, so we kept up the daily walks. That took us through the summer.

At this point, our daily walks were a habit. And each day the 10,000 steps was a LOHAG.

Long story short, the weather was good walking weather for the better part of the year. If it was hot we would walk first thing in the morning. It it was cold we would bundle up. There were a couple of times in the late fall and early winter when I had to walk in the house. And there was at least one time when I went to bed only to jump up, check my watch and realize I needed 300 more steps.

But I made it: 366 days with 10,000 or more steps. And each day that I got closer to the end goal and checked off the LOHAG of 10,000 steps I felt stronger and better. 

What did I learn?

1) Breaking a BOHAG into a series of LOHAGs makes it a lot easier to accomplish.

2) AND... getting the individual wins along the way made me feel great.

3) Finally - I was lucky. We managed to avoid COVID throughout 2020. That could have stopped the streak. In fact the streak came to an end in 2021 when I pulled something in my ankle. 

4) Had I not made it all the way to December 31, I would have still considered it a win. 

What BOHAG can you break into a series of LOHAGs?