When it comes to our health many of us are trying to set lifelong goals. If you’re anything like me, you need a good incentive to accomplish these goals!

For a long time, I exercised because I needed to lose weight. But now I have lost plenty and instead, need to gain back the muscle lost from RA. Unfortunately, the daily joint pain makes it harder to get motivated. In 2009, when I trained my body to swim a mile, I didn’t have much joint pain, just the shoulders and knees to worry about. It was one of the toughest few months of my life, trying to motivate myself to swim a mile. It took a very long time to get going and in the beginning I was extremely frustrated and could only swim about seven laps a day. Slowly but surely I built up to 10 and then 20 and then got stuck there for a while. Until one day, I decided I was going to swim 32 laps. I was fortunate to have two really good friends cheering me on!

I’m not usually very good at making New Years resolutions and keeping them. I gave up on that a while ago. But throughout the year, I do set goals and try to make the most of them! Last year was all about career goals and a lot of hard work went into finding the right job.

This year, I am planning a pretty lengthy road trip for this summer. In order for me to last more than a few days on the road, camping and hiking, I’ll need to get into really good shape! Not only will I be letting myself down if I fail, but also my wonderful boyfriend! Therefore, I’ll be doing a lot of research and writing about my findings here!

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Henry David Thoreau