This past Monday, hubby and I took a field trip. He had the day off; I took the day off, since I’m self-employed.

Originally, the plan was to walk the neighborhood. When hubby is home, he will do this with me, and we’ll spend time catching up or talking about whatever happens to come up. This time, I suggested we could get our walk in at a nearby state park. At the same time, we could scope out a couple of locations we have reservations for later in the year.

And that’s exactly what we did. We parked by one of the bathhouses as a central point and wandered around the campgrounds, the cabins, and other areas. We both got our steps in, despite a brisk wind neither of us had really thought about before driving to the lake, but it was a nice day otherwise and we didn’t let that stop us.

Hubby then mentioned that it wasn’t really that long ago when we camped at the same park and I had not been able to even walk to the closest bathhouse without pain. I often jumped in our vehicle and drove myself if I really needed to go. And there I was on Monday, covering the entirety of the campground without issues. I’ll also add that the first time I stayed in a cabin there, it was at the bottom of roughly 100 steps; I had to tote my stuff up and down those steps and it took forever (and a lot of heavy breathing). The steps are half-height, which helps, but back then, I still had to take rest breaks several times to make it up to the top.

I didn’t get from one point to the other overnight, obviously. It has taken years of sticking to it, adding or changing my routine when needed.

And yet, when I recently had to reassess my commitment to not only getting back to where I was in this journey, but to reaching the point I’ve been focused on, I had to face that my brain still wants to default to thoughts of all or nothing. Recognizing those thoughts helps me curb them, because all or nothing is a bad way to look at any journey, whether it’s weight loss, working on a project, improving skills, achieving the next level.

That thought process might go something like this: I’ve already eaten that bad thing today, so I might as well just eat all of the bad things and start over tomorrow. Or I don’t really feel like walking, today, so I’m just not gonna do any exercise at all.

Taking one day at a time doesn’t mean discounting the sections of that day. If I eat something that’s bad for me, then eating clean the rest of the day matters. After all, way back when I started this journey, I started with the fake it until you make it idea because I really just didn’t feel like wanting to make lifetime changes. I started in small increments, and 200+ pounds later, I should always remember that small increments matter. When I started walking, again, I started by simply walking around my backyard. Now, walking a few miles is no big deal, but believing that if I can’t get my goal of steps in means I shouldn’t bother walking at all, once again discounts the increments I used to get there in the first place.

You do what you can, when you can. That’s what makes a difference. All or nothing may be my default thought process, but it doesn’t have to take over everything else.

Until I am done backtracking my journey and heading in the direction I want, I’m all in, but not for nothing!