Why I built this

In 2017, I cut all fast food from my weekdays for a year, trying to get healthier.

The truth is, my health was still trash even after cutting back. I'd just swapped the fast food for unhealthy food at home.

For most of my life, I tried to find motivation in goals and rewards. I'd always start out strong, but after missing a reward one too many times, the motivation would fade. Eventually, I found something that worked for me, and I think it might work for others too.

After that year without weekday fast food (I still don't know how I pulled it off), I decided to keep avoiding it on weekdays, with one exception: I started going to Fazoli's once a week, on purpose.

Having Fazoli's on the calendar every week shifted my mindset. Instead of fighting to reach a goal to earn a reward, I went to Fazoli's no matter what, and I started thinking about which habits I could focus on during the week to make the next visit even better. That weekly Fazoli's was my first cairn, a weekly anchor I could count on no matter how the week went. My physical health followed over time, because Fazoli's is ten times better when I've been walking and eating well all week.

If you're wondering about the word cairn, it comes from my childhood. Our family vacations were always the same: a trip to the Rocky Mountains. No beaches, no amusement parks, no big cities, just climbing mountains. Hikations, as some people call them. Up there I learned what a cairn is: a small stack of stones hikers leave to mark the trail. When the path disappears above the tree line, the next cairn tells you you're still on track. You don't stare at the summit. You walk to the next cairn.

I'll be honest: the physical results took years. Looking back, I think there were two reasons. My health limited which habits I could take on, and my mental health had slipped too, so many of my early wins were mental, not physical.

I'm building this for me as much as anyone. I've lost sight of my cairns lately, and I need more structure around them. Being intentional about my cairns, the good things I can count on each week, was life changing.

Count on your cairns. Keep moving.