I am obsessed with efficiency. As someone who is driven by goals and always has more to do than time to do it, I’m a huge fan of actions that achieve more than one thing at a time. I try to group all my errands into one trip; I’m frequently late because I want to take advantage of every second available to me (I’m not proud of this one); and if I can do one thing that accomplishes three things at the same time, I get all giddy and excited. In fact, many of the things you’ll see me write about on this blog will be ‘double wins’ in my book. So as I was thinking about how to achieve my 2020 goals, I really looked for actions that could help me work toward more than one goal at a time. One such win: taking my dog for a long walk every day.

Now, I think it’s important for you to know that no one in my house considers the dog “mine.” The Lumberjack brought dogs into our marriage—my original step-dogs have since passed—and he is the primary animal caregiver. Technically, it’s my son’s job to walk the dog every day, though he rarely does it of his own initiative and (especially in the days of COVID-19) it’s a daily chore to decide if I want to use my limited nagging time to remind him to walk the dog, or if there’s something more pressing to get on his case about.

But as Baron has grown from puppy to adult and spends more time lolling around taking naps, he has started to get fatter and lazier. And when I as a human adult work from home, it can sometimes be a challenge to get even 1000 steps in if I’m not deliberately trying to move around. The way I saw it, we both needed to move. And I had the chance for a double win towards my goals, as well. Thus began the daily dog walks.

Win 1: Exercise

The first win seems obvious – getting out to walk the dog helps me get some exercise, gives me a great way to log some of the 1000 miles I want to walk or run this year, and keeps me moving, which all the studies show is important to health and longevity.

We live out in the country, near a nice rolling creek and adjacent to a county forest preserve, so there are several options for long walks that are peaceful and fairly isolated. Just to get down our lane and onto the road is about ¼ mile. So, my goal is to walk at least 1 mile a day with the dog, which takes around 20 minutes with all the bio stops along the way.

If I can get in a mile a day with this daily habit, I’m over 1/3 of the way to my 1000 mile goal for 2020, without even really trying. Sweet!

And I can confirm that since I have started this practice, not only am I racking up the miles and closing the exercise ring on my watch every day (so satisfying!), but the lower back pain I’ve been experiencing for the last several months is improving.

Win 2: Spirituality and Mental Health

I spent the last 16 years helping grow and lead a national non-profit organization. It was an incredibly stressful job. And as I’m detaching from that, I’m re-reminding myself that, sadly, I am a little bit addicted to stress. I’ve always been a worrier, and I’m realizing that I can always find something to be anxious about, even when no one around me is forcing that upon me. That means I need to develop new habits and ways of detaching myself from that self-imposed stress and anxiety.

These daily walks, when I’m out in nature with nothing else to do but look at my dog and the world around us, are really good detox opportunities. As spring is arriving my favorite walks are the days when the sun is shining and the temperatures are perfect, but I’ve been out in the rain, the cold, and on cloudy, windy days, and the fresh air and silence never fail to perk me up. I am definitely an internal processor, so this alone time with the dog gives me a chance to think through issues that are plaguing me. Sometimes I listen to music or podcasts, and sometimes I just use the time to listen to myself, pray, or practice mindfulness, which I am really terrible at.

Regardless of what I spend the time doing, I always arrive home feeling a little lighter than I started.

Surprise Win 3: Cleanup!

I grew up in the days when there was a public service campaign called “Keep America Beautiful” and lots of admonitions about littering—which means I had strong social pressure as well as family rules against throwing out trash. If I so much as ditch an apple core onto the ground – even knowing it will decompose naturally – I am nearly consumed with guilt.

So when I walk around our country roads and see all the trash in the ditch, I’m stuck between disgust and disbelief that people can so casually toss their junk off on the side of the road. Now, this is a land of pickup trucks, which means that some things may simply be landing in the ditch because they bounced out the back of the truck bed while someone was innocently driving down the road.

However: a surprising amount of this ditch trash is beer cans, and these show up with increasing frequency on the weekends, which tells me some local kids are destroying the evidence before they head home after the evening’s carousing.

When I was growing up, my mom used to pick up these cans out of the ditch when she went out for a walk. I used to find this soooooooooo embarrassing – watching my mom pick up trash seemed demeaning and shameful, and I dreaded having cars drive by and see her. Now that I’m older, I have a deep admiration for my mom’s role as an original conservationist (I’m planning to write more about this in a future post), who was working to save the planet long before it was cool.

Anyway. You can probably see where this is going: I now regularly bring a bag with me when we head out, so I can pick up trash as I pass it. Get some exercise, clear your mind, AND clean up the neighborhood? Zing! Win-win-win!

Surprise Win 4: Pooping! (the dog, not me)

Baron is a rescue dog, which means we inherited his quirks. He’s clearly a pretty anxious and insecure dog, and this plays itself out in a surprising, and disgusting way: he likes to poop in private. Specifically, in between the two cars in our garage.

Gross.

Now, if you are a normal person, and you have a dog, you probably either let your dog out into a fenced yard, or take them for a walk around the block to do their business. And if your dog is a normal dog, this is more than enough to take care of things.

Not Baron. Baron can go outside, wander around for many minutes, sniff and stretch and frolic, and then the moment you leave him alone in the garage for ninety seconds, he’s between the cars taking care of things. This is a source of constant frustration and friction with the Lumberjack, because I want him to fix this, and he keeps reminding me that he doesn’t control the dog’s bodily functions. Whatever.

But it turns out that when Baron and I are out for 20 or 30 minutes, he just can’t hold it. Voila – problem solved! This makes me incredibly happy, and has reduced a source of tension between the Lumberjack and me. Honestly, there are some days where this has gotten me outside when I was tempted to skip the daily walk. I’m kind of embarrassed to say that, but if I’m keeping it real, I have to admit it’s true.

Why assigning metrics to something so nice isn’t gross

So what I have with these daily walks is a new habit that hits on multiple levels to achieving my 2020 goals. When I am preparing for my day and figuring out when I’m going to fit in my walk, it’s such a positive, uplifting practice that I sometimes find it jarring to think about it in terms of goal attainment or a calendar appointment. But, that’s how you achieve goals, even ones that are about personal fulfillment and values alignment – you determine what your end goal is (in my case, a life aligned with my values); you figure out what it would take to achieve that goal (in this case, going for a walk with my dog every day); and then you put it into practice (here, that means putting it on my daily calendar).

And then you measure it. I use an app called Productive to help cultivate daily habits, and looking back on the month of March, I can see that I achieved this goal 26 out of 31 days.

Bam. At least in this respect, I’m living my values-driven life.

Do you have a daily habit that achieves a “double-win” or more for you? Tell us about it in the comments.