The Walk Active Wellness journal is a great way to help you get organised, feel supported, and be inspired by your WalkActive efforts throughout 2024.
Check out the video below for a step-by-step guide to using the journal. It will explain in detail how you can use your journal to support yourself to look better, feel better and perform better with WalkActive.
How the Wellness Journal can give you the best chance of success
This Wellness Journal can be used in two ways:
- As a standalone resource where you can track and plan your sessions, get weekly tips, and record your progress.
- As a companion to the WalkActive app to plan your sessions in conjunction with the app and join in live sessions with your Journal.
More than just a journal, it’s been designed with features to help you REALLY think about your health and wellness.
To move forward you should first reflect
At the beginning of the Journal, I (Joanna Hall, The WalkActive Coach) encourage you to reflect on the past year in broad terms, making it personal to you. For example:
- Considering if you came across any issues or missed out on something from a wellness perspective. This will act as a benchmark for the year ahead.
- What lessons did you learn about yourself? Note your habits (good and bad), your barriers and who your cheerleaders are.
- Importantly, acknowledge your triumphs and successes! What brought you joy and lifted your spirits in the last year?
The journal has space on each page for you to note what has made you smile or what you are grateful for to keep you in a positive mindset throughout the coming year. Reflection gives you a starting point and motivation to look ahead and plan.
Joanna’s 5 WalkActive Rules for Goal Setting
Now you have reflected, it is time to set yourself some goals! Setting wellness goals for the year helps prioritise your health, giving you a roadmap to improve physical and mental wellbeing, and ultimately enhance your overall quality of life. Here’s what you should remember when setting goals…
#1 Set goals that are adaptable
It is tricky to maintain success when a goal is rigid. Remember life has its ebbs and flows, and motivation can come and go, creating challenges.
#2 Make them specific
When you identify something that you want to achieve, drill down to the details. For example, would you like to improve your walking pace? What is the specific impact you hope this will have for you on your wellness journey?
#3 Share your goals
When you share your goals, you take ownership and they become powerful. Share them with the WalkActive community in the app and on our Facebook and Instagram pages. We work hard to create a positive environment where you can feel supported in sharing your goals, your successes and your challenges.
#4 Be creative
Think beyond immediate, measurable results. Perhaps your goals include the quality of your self-esteem or how well you sleep.
#5 Make it personal
Think about your own experiences such as your mental health, fitness levels, posture, and shape.
Breaking Down Your Goals
The journal encourages you to break down your goals into months.
For example, it’s a good idea to focus on your WalkActive Technique and posture through the first month. This is the foundation of your movement pattern, so making this your priority at the start of your journey will give you momentum through the whole year.
Consider what your monthly focus could be to reach your goals. Do you have any non-negotiables? They might include getting outside and walking for a minimum of 10 minutes daily. Think about how this will make you feel physically and mentally. The key is to make any non-negotiable personal to you.
Review your technique
You will find an overview of the basic workout technique outlined at the beginning of the journal, as well as comprehensively in the app. This technique has been scientifically proven to help your posture and walk at a better pace by up to 24%. The studies also proved to help look after your joints, specifically the knee and the ankle and take the pressure off your hips.
Progression, Maintenance and Damage Limitation
Here is a helpful system for understanding where you are at and what you can achieve. The notion of progression, maintenance and damage limitation is a concept I’ve used for many years with clients.
Here’s the thing: you set out enthusiastically with your goals. But challenges come along, life gets in the way and disrupts those good intentions.
This concept of progression, maintenance and damage limitation is a reality check of understanding what your goals are and the actions you can take to stay on course.
Progression
Are you confident you’ll achieve your focus? 95% sure? That’s the definition of a progressive month – nice!
Maintenance
You have set your focus, but in reality, you have a really busy month ahead. Because of this, you’re around 75% confident that you will be able to meet your focus. That is the maintenance level for the month.
Damage Limitation
Damage limitation comes in when you look at your month ahead and you are thinking ‘there is no way I’m going to be able to do everything!’
You may be less than 30% confident that you’ll be able to complete what you’ve set out to, but rather than shutting up shop and waiting for the perfect moment, you limit the damage.
Go back to your daily non-negotiables. It might be rather than a minimum of 10 minutes walk every day you shift to every other morning. Build in a bit of slack so you can still build momentum.
Focus Mapping
You have goals, non-negotiables and a plan should things not stay on track. Now, focus on the details and start to map out the WalkActive sessions you want to attend to support your wellness journey. For example:
- In-person sessions like Walking Together our WalkActive Workshops or Pace the Park sessions or Retreats with Joanna and the WalkActive Team
- Live webinars
- Audio coaching sessions in the app
Use the journal to plan anything you want to do. Add in a wellness retreat or a holiday. Map out everything you plan to do to support your goals.
Nurturing the template of success
As you move into the next month, be sure to review the previous month. On reflection, was your month progressive, maintenance or damage limitation? How do you rate your WalkActive technique?
The WalkActive technique is the foundation of your success. If you work on your technique, regardless of the quantity of steps that you do, you will get results. It may be that you’ve had a damage limitation month, but you have still been on point with your technique. This is not a failing month, it is a successful month!
Keep coming back to the Journal. The WalkActive Wellness Journal is designed to be personal to you to help you get organised, and feel supported, optimistic and inspired.
Grab that pen!
As soon as you start to take those first steps, you will feel brighter in your body, mind and overall outlook.
So, lovely people, thank you so much for being part of our journey. Use your journal to support yourself to look, feel, and perform better with WalkActive. Let me know if you found this useful. I’d love to know what some of your wellness goals are. Please share them within the app community and report how you got on.
