For a blog titled, “Every Little Step,” I am surprisingly not posting or talking regularly about working out. For one, I have no qualifications to suggest or dictate a workout regime to anyone. And second, I don’t actually care what you do or don’t do with your body, provided you’re not hurting anyone else.

But today I want to share some of the tactics I have used to get daily progress in different areas of my life related to fitness. This includes things I do and do not do regularly.

1. Do not weigh every day
2. Track daily habits
3. Check in often

The first action is a do not, as in I do not weigh myself every day. We should all know by now that weight fluctuates with hormones, water retention, activity, calorie intake, the phase of the moon… trying to measure something every day that has so much natural change is an exercise in futility.

Instead, I have calendar reminders for the first of the month and the 15th and I weigh myself on those days. Even then, to my frustration, the number could change between morning and night. This is not a control metric, if you’re up then cut back on food and if you’re down you’ve somehow won. It’s just a check.

The second action is to decide what daily actions I can measure and track for consistency. This year that is squats and miles cycled.

I decided I wanted to do 10,000 squats and 2,024 miles on the bike and so every day I write down my results. This is relatively simple within my notes app where I list out the days of the month and then track what I’ve done at the end of the day.

I’ve also added the squats into my Productive app so that if I want a perfect score (and I do!), then I have to finish at least 20 squats. If I continue this habit next year I will make the goal the average, not the minimum.

The third action is to check in often. Some folks do this on social media and that fine as long as you won’t be demotivated if you don’t get positive attention. It’s okay to just check in with yourself, either using something like a bullet journal or another tracker to see how it’s going.

The other side of this equation is to check in with yourself. Is this goal still working for you? Are you having any body changes that need to be accounted for (e.g. a sprain or persistent injury)? How are these actions feeling for you?

I often use my daily mediation time for this kind of reflection and talk monthly with a trainer. Even my visits to a chiropractor can be a time to reflect – are you walking enough, when did this ache pop up, are stretches helping?

Right now, on average I do 40 squats every day (usually while I’m outside waiting for my dog to do his business) and 8 miles a day on the bike. This is in addition to some free weight work and yoga. It’s helpful to check in and see how I feel, if I need more stretching time or to incorporate somatic yoga. Everyone has a different journey so if you’re training for a marathon, doing a lap around the block or working on a PR in power-lifting, what you do and how you feel will be unique to you.

Here are some other, small, habits that help me with these routines:

• Keep your equipment within reach, shoes by the bed, yoga mat in the office, dumbbells easy to reach
• Set a monthly goal as well as an annual goal, then focus on reaching that goal each month and adjust as needed
• Chose actions which can be completed in any weather, at most times of day
• Invest in backups, if you have on workout appropriate outfit then you won’t be exercising on laundry day
• Work on building intrinsic motivation, the joy of doing the thing, not extrinsic motivation, happiness from the approval of others
• Build in breaks, acknowledge that there will be times you can’t do the thing and need a rest day and take it without shame

If you’ve cultivated a regular movement or workout routine, I’d love to know what has worked for you ?