Here we are AS-tronauts – stepping off for week nine on the first leg of our journey to Mars. What a ride it has been! All of us have contributed over 340 million steps so far we are zooming right along.
As I was contemplating our motivation this week my strongest supporter, my mother, said something I found really interesting, “sometimes motivation comes from habit”. The more I thought about it I agreed with her. Think about it…each day we strap on our pedometers and walk around with it all day. We do it for ten weeks and along the way it becomes a habit. We do it automatically, like a muscle memory (a task that becomes easier to do after you practice it over and over). Then as we record our steps we check previous days and weeks and see if we’ve improved our step counts. If we have a low week we say, “Well, I can do better than that.” There it is, our motivation from our habit.
The same thing happens when we talk about Spondylitis. We stop and talk to one person about it and then later we may have remembered something we forgot and think “Next time”. As we go along it gets easier and easier and next thing you know our comfort zone expands and we are becoming a greater advocate and raising awareness about AS on a regular basis.
There has been a song stuck in my head all week, and there is a section that says “I like to greet the Sun each morning and walk amongst the stars at night”, as I thought about it in relation to motivation from habit it struck me that as the sun comes up each morning the birds sing out my window and my dogs wake me up for our morning ritual. Their habit is part of my motivation to get up and moving each morning. What about you? What habit keeps you motivated?
Our 2014 campaign is quickly drawing to an end. Will you keep the habit of counting your steps and getting the word out about Ankylosing Spondylitis? You know, habits are really hard to break.
Heather Stewart was a state champion baton twirler and champion dancer. During graduate school she started experiencing chronic pain & fatigue but even with a family history of AS, she was told people of color could not have AS. After seeing her grandfather’s Rheumatologist she was finally diagnosed. Heather channels her active mind with floral arrangement, crocheting, scrapbooking, volunteering, singing in a barbershop chorus, reading, spending time with family, playing with her dogs and quilting. Heather Stewart is the author/coach for our Musical Motivation Monday blog.
Heather is one of our Walk Ambassadors & Team Captain of The Rockin’ Weebles!
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