Seven Days of Morning Walks: What I Learned Putting One Foot in Front of the Other

Fresh off my seven days without coffee, I wasn't done. I liked how that week felt – the decision to do it in the first place, the short timeframe, and the hot of feel-good chemicals at the end of the week when I achieved it. So I set myself another one. This time: a walk with Winnie (my Jack Russell), every single morning, no matter what.

Setting myself up before I even started

The trick I learned from the coffee week is that the commitment is easier to keep if you've made all the smaller decisions around it already. So, the night before Day One, I decided what I'd wear… my Lorna Jane pants, a rain jacket and a beanie because it was winter, and I put my shoes by the door. I knew the plan: get up, get dressed, brush my teeth, and take Winnie out. My other dog, Ruby, stays home for these walks, so I made sure I had a nice juicy bone in the fridge for her, so she didn't feel left out.

There's actually something to this beyond just being organised. A lot of what drains our motivation isn't the task itself, it's the pile of small decisions sitting in front of it like, what to wear, when to go, and questions like, what if it's cold or raining?

If you want this to work, reduce the number of decisions you have to make in the moment, and you reduce the number of chances you have to talk yourself out of it. It's the same reason people like Barack Obama and Steve Jobs famously wore some version of the same outfit every day. They didn’t do it because they didn't care about their clothes, but because they wanted that decision made once, not 365 times a year.

A slight side note: the term ‘decision fatigue’ can get bounced around here however, the science on this is more contested than the popular version of it suggests. Some of the original studies haven't held up well when other researchers tried to repeat them, and there's a theory doing the rounds that decision fatigue might partly be a self-fulfilling prophecy of its own… people who believe their willpower runs out during the day are the ones who actually experience it running out.

Which, funnily enough, is the basis of all the work I do with clients — become aware of how you speak to yourself and the stories you tell yourself, change them to what you actually want to believe, and you're far more likely to get the outcome you're after.

Either way, knowing my plan and having everything ready the night before, made it easier to get up. That part I know is true, because I lived it.

The week, day by day

Day 1

Day one: Cold, and honestly I didn't want to get out of bed.  I more or less forced myself up. But because I'd already made the decision the night before, there wasn't much room left to argue with myself about it. I just did the next thing on the list.

Day two: Genuinely good.  Winnie loved being out, and I felt that small buzz of having kept a promise to myself.

Day three: The hard one.  Tired, dragging my feet, half wanting to turn around and go home. I kept going anyway, and about halfway through, I started to feel better, and ended up walking further that morning than any other day that week. This turned out to be the day the whole challenge tipped from "forcing myself" to "actually enjoying it."

Day four: Nothing special to report This was its own kind of win… showing up without a story attached, just because it was the plan.

Day five: The one that taught me the most about flexibility.  I slept in a little later than usual. I had to wash my hair and I had a client meeting, which meant I didn't have time to spare before the walk. So I made a call: get ready, see my client, walk afterwards instead of first thing. I got myself fully dressed for the walk before my client session (yes, sometimes when I'm coaching, I am business up top, active wear and Uggs down the bottom 😊), so there was no easy excuse to talk myself out of it later. The walk still happened, it just happened a little later. Plans changing isn't the same as failing, as long as you've got a real reason and you're not just finding an excuse. This is when the challenge changed to "daily walk" not "morning walk." A small amendment made it even more achievable for me.

Day six: The day it poured. I was at home working on memorising my keynote and hit a wall, so I put Winnie's lead on and took a break outside, where I ended up using the walk to recite the speech back to myself. It was spitting rain when we left, and I could have easily used that as my excuse to stay home. Instead, I put of rain jacket and went anyway. Halfway through, at the furthest point from home, it opened up into a proper downpour. It would have been really easy to complain to myself and wish I hadn’t come out. Instead, I decided it didn't matter. Yes, I was soaked through and couldn’t feel my hands, but I was still outside, in nature, and lucky to be able to do it at all. We sheltered under a verandah until it eased, then walked home. I'm glad I went, because if I hadn't left when I did, I probably wouldn't have gone at all that day.

Day seven: The last day.  Still cold, still a bit of rain, but lovely all the same, with the added bonus of knowing I'd actually done what I set out to do.

What this week actually taught me

A few things became obvious by the end of it, and none of them are really about walking.

Here are the lessons I gained – or was reminded of – during this week’s challenge.

Lesson 1 - You need a decision, not a dream. A goal without a decision to act on it is just a wish. I didn't decide to become a person who walks every morning forever. I decided to do it for seven days, and that was small enough to actually commit to.

Lesson 2 - Put a timeline around it. A goal that's too big gives your brain too many reasons to talk you out of it. Seven days is small enough to be believable and long enough to mean something. If seven feels like too much, go five. Go three. Just choose a number and stick to it.

Lesson 3 - Do it even when you don't feel like it. Wednesday nearly broke the whole challenge. I didn't feel like it, I dragged myself out anyway, and it turned into the best walk of the week. That's not a coincidence… that resistance right before the breakthrough it part of how this works, not a sign to stop (read that again please, and let it sink in).

Lesson 4 - Know your why.  I had three real reasons for doing this: 1. Retraining my own brain to actually follow through on things I say I'll do2. Wanting the benefits of movement and morning light3. Giving Winnie something to look forward to. On the mornings I didn't feel like it, going back to those reasons is what got me out the door.

There's genuine research behind two parts of this week worth mentioning properly. 

First, the morning light: getting natural light into your eyes early in the day helps set your circadian rhythm, the internal clock that governs when you feel alert and when you feel sleepy. It works by suppressing melatonin and nudging cortisol up a little, which is exactly the kind of "awake" feeling I noticed on the mornings I actually got moving early. (For more information on our circadian rhythm and how morning light benefits us, listen to The Brain Changers Podcast Ep 34 where I interviewed Sleep Specialist, Sabine Christelli).

Second, the keynote-reciting trick on Day Six wasn't just a good use of a walk. Movement while learning something genuinely help it stick. Walking increases blood flow to the brain and supports the areas involved in memory, which may be part of why pacing while reciting or rehearsing something can help it embed more effectively than sitting still ever does. If you have a workshop or presentation coming up that you want to be ready for, use this technique.

Where to from here

Seven days is up, and I've decided to keep going - another seven days of morning (or at least, daily) walks, because I can feel the resistance still sitting there, which tells me the habit isn't set yet. Coffee, on the other hand, has been easy enough that I'm extending that one out to a full month before I check back in with myself.

Underneath the walking and the weather and the cold body, this is the same work as always - deciding something small, doing it even when it's inconvenient, and letting the evidence build that you're someone who follows through. That's what I do with clients every day, just usually without the rain!

There's an old saying: Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your habits Your habits become your values And your values become your destiny.

This whole week was that chain in action, one step at a time.

And that's the most important part of all of this: what you tell yourself. Tell yourself it's going to be hard and you can't do it, and it will be, and you won't. Reframe it to "this is new for me, and I'm going to put everything I can into it" and you're already halfway there.

If my challenges have so far inspired you and you've got one of your own you'd like to achieve, I'd genuinely love to hear it. Tell me what it is and I'll support you along the way.

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If reading this has you wondering what other stories you're running on autopilot - how you react under pressure, what you believe you need to get through a day, or what you've decided is "just who you are" - that's exactly the kind of thing my Stop the Hijack Challenge is built to uncover. It's free, five days, thirty minutes a day, online one-on-one with me. By the end, you'll know exactly which of those stories are actually true, and which ones you've just been carrying around out of habit.

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