This week is our first work week challenge on Fitbit. All of us in the office are competing to see who gets the most steps in 5 days. After one day I am solidly in second place but making plans to catch up and get into first. Only problem with that? I’ll have to double my daily activity levels.

Before we started this challenge my daily step goal was 10,000. That’s a pretty good goal and it means I’m getting at least 30 minutes of activity in a day. It’s something that is reasonable, attainable, and healthy.

Buuuuuut….. competition!!!

While I’m ahead of several coworkers, I’m not in first place. This is something that is driving me to get in more activity than I’d normally get in a day. Where my daily step goal was previously 10,000, I know it now needs to be 15,000 or even more to stay on track with the most active person in the office.

Last night I was 8,000 steps behind and this morning I’m 5,000 steps behind. I know that I’ll need to keep up a consistently higher average to stay close!

Having that person in front of me on the leaderboard is annoying but it’s also making me want to do more to get closer or surpass for first place. If I was on top with just 10,000 steps, I wouldn’t be challenging myself to do more.

While I might not when this work week challenge or those that come after it, I’m excited to try.

Getting a Fitbit Flex and signing up for the Fitbit platform has been a reminder that I can do more. I should raise the bar for myself. Keep working harder, keep trying to do more! Sure consistency is great, but winning competitions and challenging yourself to do more is even better!

(I really should channel this competitive spirit into some sort of sport or formal activity soon, yeah?)

I’ll report back at the end of the week on how I did with this 5 day step challenge. It’s going to definitely be a challenge for me to get in more steps and more activity for the week, but I think I can raise my baseline and do more. I’m certainly going to try!