Less & More: The WFH Mom Edit

On January 1, 2025, I set a New Year’s Resolution to get 10k+ steps every day for a year (‘Cause, ya know, walking is really important!) I mostly accomplished that. In case anyone out there is still contemplating their goals and resolutions for 2026, I thought I’d share my experience – maybe it will help you out! Here’s what I learned from it all. 

First, I will fully cop to the fact that my record wasn’t perfect. I actually didn’t realize at the time, but purely by accident, on January 3rd, I didn’t quite complete the task. 

Oops! Not sure exactly how it slipped away from me, but I only got 9,700 that day! 

At the time, I didn’t notice and I just kept going on. In mid-November, my daughter was working on a math problem with my dad and they used my step goals/counter as a real world example, exposing the fact that I had missed a day somewhere along the way. But by that time, my step streak was up in the high 200’s, so I just shrugged it off and kept moving along. 

Everything was aces until my Garmin started acting up. I absolutely LOVE my watch, but after wearing it for four years, it was starting to get a little wonky – luckily, I got the most up to date Garmin for Christmas this year (thanks, Dan!). In addition to having a pretty short battery life, it was doing this strange thing where it would ERASE steps from my step count occasionally. Usually, it happened early enough in the day where I could make up for it, but one time, it was too late in the day and I just couldn’t catch up. And so, on December 20th, I ended my longest ever step streak of 350 days. I limped through the holiday season, MOSTLY getting 10k (9k on Christmas Eve/Christmas where there was a lot going on, for example), but since the streak was already broken, I must admit, it took a bit of wind out of my sails. Which brings me to the lessons I’ve learned from this semi-successful endeavor. 

1. I love the gamification. As evidenced by my behavioral pattern, I am more motivated than I’d care to admit by the watch telling me that I’m on a streak. I love watching the little calendar pages fly up to show how many days in a row I’ve accomplished my goal. All this to say, if you want to get more steps in, I really do think a pedometer or fitness tracker is a huge part of keeping yourself accountable. I absolutely adore my new Garmin – Dan moved me over to the Vivoactive series (v. the Venu series I had before), but I really like all the features. You can grab one of those on Amazon for about $250, and unlike a lot of other trackers, it DOES NOT require a monthly subscription for you to access all your data. I’ll do a full review of it soon!
   
2. There were days I really just didn’t feel like it. I suppose this goes without saying, but whether it was a busy schedule or maybe I didn’t feel 100% for whatever reason, there were more days than I anticipated where this felt like an insurmountable chore. On days where it felt really tough, I broke it down into small increments and just tried to walk up and down the street a few times to get it all to add up. On those days, it wasn’t pretty, but I always got it done, which was a nice boost of keeping a promise to myself (and seeing the streak number on my watch, as above, of course!).
   
3. It got in the way of other cardio, sometimes. There were days where I’d consider doing a Peloton spin class or maybe a rowing bootcamp, but I’d think: “Nah, I don’t want to use up my time and energy on that because I’ll need it to get my steps.” Because I’m not a huge runner anymore (my back just doesn’t love me pounding the pavement like it tolerated in my 20’s), that meant that HIIT workouts and VO2Max challenges were fewer and farther between than they probably should have been. I didn’t make this a resolution for myself in 2026 for this very reason. I want to walk a lot, of course (and Waylon wouldn’t have it any other way!), but I do want to add some of those other cardio challenges back into my life and I need to make room for those – there are only so many hours in the day! I spent some of my winter break bookmarking some rides and rows I want to take this year – I’m psyched!

4. Waylon has never been happier. I’ve always been PRETTY good about walking him, but 10k steps usually means about three miles outside, per day, for this guy. He loves all the sniffing, interaction and exercise. On regular school days, he knows exactly when it’s time to walk, follows me around until I leash him up, and then happily sleeps for the rest of the day, blissfully exhausted. When we have Rover dogs we’re sitting for – same deal. Walking is good for EVERYONE. This whole resolution really reminded me that a walk is the best part of a dog’s day, and even if the weather is slightly subpar, it’s not something we should deprive them of too often.
   

5. Sometimes, I let it stress me out. I’ve been in the process of discovering that my life in general is a little overstuffed. Parental duties, housecleaning, paid work, school commitments (at the kids’ school), working out, making time for myself … it all adds up and frequently, I bite off more than I can chew. It leads to higher stress levels, poor recovery/sleep and just generally feeling like I’m spread too thin. One of the reasons for all of this is that I am horrible at letting things be “good enough.” If my kids have clean up after dinner chores, I always swoop in after and re-clean. If I get 9,500 steps, and it’s bedtime, I’ll charge around the house to make sure my streak doesn’t drop. The 10k steps per day goal sometimes meant trying to cram it in (I won’t even get started on the fact that it was just one resolution of 21 from 2025 – that’s a post for another time). I’m not entirely sure how I feel about whether or not my obsession with perfection is a good thing for my overall life or not, but I will say without emotion that there were times that this step goal meant higher stress in my life last year.
   

Overall, this was a great resolution to make and keep:

This good habit I stuck to daily made it easier to maintain consistency with others. It takes up about an hour a day, so I absolutely had to plan for it on my calendar and other slots just fell into place – strength training, chores, work tasks and so on. Because it’s such a timely endeavor, it really solidified my planning skills and execution without a lot of time to waste on mindless scrolling or any other time wasters. 

As usual, I got the kids on it during the days they were home, and that is ALWAYS a positive for me – togetherness as we move together outside? Perfect. 

Additionally, it was a wonderful exercise in continued discipline and as you can see by the content of this post, it encouraged me to do a lot of self reflection and I learned a lot in the process. There were many days that I went above and beyond 10k and got more like 15k, so I’m positive it was a huge success in increasing my Zone 2 Cardio capacity and other walking health benefits. Even though I won’t be doing it again in the exact same way, I would still highly recommend some version of it to others and I will be doing it again this year with a few modifications: 

My 2026 walking resolution: Walking – 10k steps per day, unless it hinders another important cardio challenge or leads to undue personal stress. 

Anyone out there have walking resolutions on their list for 2026? Tell me all about it and let’s track together!