Achievement & Reflection
My Friday Thought: Remembering where you started is vital to ensure you can see how far you have come. Ranking against others isn't important, ranking against yourself is.
After having my daughter I had a significantly medical issue, which due to covid meant I didn't get treatment as quickly as would have normally happened. This resulted in about 4 years ago getting consultant care to support me back into health.
4 years ago I could barely walk, I couldn't sit on the floor and get back up again without significant effort and I was in constant pain. Thankfully medical treatments of weekly injections and physiotherapy I am in a much different place today. However, I also had to put in effort to get here.
For the last 3 years during May I have taken part in a walkathon, doing as many steps as I could throughout May. The first year I set myself a goal of 300k steps for the month and amazed myself when I managed to achieve it. It kick started my walking again, only winter I didn't keep it up. The following year I set a 15k a day step goal, which I failed. On reflection working in tech and at a desk getting in steps was hard. I invested in a walking pad, set up a walking board and a target of 300k steps a month. The walking pad allowed me to achieve this as no matter the weather I could walk. Plus first thing many mornings I could do a walk and work when no one else was really on line.
This years walkathon isn't quiet finished by I set myself a target of 500k steps for the month which was about 16k steps a day. I managed 30k steps one day and over achieved my starting goal. In a friendly competition of over thousand people on who does the most steps, being in the top 100 is great, but more importantly I am reflecting on what I have achieved in the last few years and how far I have managed to come - it doesn't matter where I sat in the ranking as that doesn't dictate my achievement I do.
The same is true in tech/organisations, don't just look at start-ups so the high flyers. Yes they can give you motivation and goals, but look at where your team/organisation/products have moved to.
