Planning my Power Hike

If you read my last post, you'll know that I am currently planning a "30 Day Power Hike" to get myself back on the right track as far as health is concerned. If you didn't read my last post, now you know, 'cause I just told you! ;) So what is this "Power hike"? What does it mean? What will I do? Well, let me tell ya:

This idea came to me while I was braiding wool at work and watching tv. (That's right, wool. Yeah, my job rocks.) A bunch of people were going on about a 30 day program that they used to lose weight and how happy they were that they did it. My first reaction: Good for you guys! Becoming healthy isn't easy. Second reaction, of course, was a little irritated twitch of my always present "anti-weight-for-health" sensor. But you know what, for a lot of people, when they loose weight they feel healthier, so just because I don't like using it doesn't mean it isn't good for others. I shouldn't judge. :P

Anyway, the people were talking about what a great initial push it was to get them into shape. The wheels in my brain began turning. I really need an initial momentum push...what better way than to have a freak-out, over the top 30 days? If I can get my momentum back up, I think I'll have much more luck in all of the healthy aspects of my life, physical, mental, and spiritual. (All subjects which have really been suffering, especially this past month.)

I call it the "Power hike" because, this is my life's journey right? So, maybe there's a mountain in my way. Sure I could ignore and walk around it, but that's lazy! Besides, I could discover something really cool at the top of that mountain. Yeah, it's a little steep, but it's a power hike. It's supposed to be a little hard. Here's the thing, I don't know if any of you have suddenly decided "Hey, I'm gonna go and do something really strenuous like a giant hike!" What happens if you don't prepare for that hike? You die halfway through and don't enjoy yourself at all. All you want is to go home and go to sleep and rest those aching muscles. I don't want that to happen to me, so before I go on the "hike" starting March 2nd, I'm going to use this month as a sort of "preparation period". That way I'll sort of build up my strength so hopefully the hike won't be too difficult. Now it's time to PLAN! If you want to do your own power hike, you're welcome to use my system to create your own! (Copying someone else's plan completely doesn't seem very successful to me because everyone is different, so different things work better for different people.)

Plan of Attack for February:

First off, I'm going to have a "plan and review" day (Sunday) at the beginning of each week to - you guessed it! - review how the previous week went and plan what should be my focus in the coming week. I'll decide on a few goals for the week based on what I think would be best to work on. A lot (if not all) of these will probably be my penny jar goals.

Next, I'll create a chart with the goals for every day that I can mark off during the week, complete with the "points" (or pennies) that I'll earn if when I accomplish them. If I don't accomplish the weekly goal, then on my plan and access day when I give myself the pennies, I'll also have to take as many pennies as I would have earned and put them into my "bad penny" jar.

Final step: Do it! If I don't...man I'm gonna die in March! Because no matter what, I'm doing the power hike. To paraphrase a favorite quote of mine, When the time for action arrives, the time for preparation is past.

Wish me luck! Off I go!