Getting Your Steps In: How to Make a SMART Plan to Walk for Exercise

Motivational Tip: Small habit changes can add up to big transformations.

Making an exercise plan is easier than making exercise a habit. We're human, and it's natural to make excuses for not doing things we know we should do and yet don't feel motivated to do. But there are strategies you can use to get started with and be disciplined about a fitness routine, even when your willpower wanes.

Before you begin any exercise regimen, get your physician's approval. It's important to know that your body is in the right condition to get in shape. Then, follow these suggestions for turning good intentions into real results.

Set a SMART goal. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound—it's basically a template to help you determine exactly what you want to accomplish and to do it in a way that won't discourage you from achieving it (Bailey, 2017). See the box below for a sample SMART goal for starting a walking routine.

Your SMART goal for starting a walking routine could look like this:

• Specific - I will walk to improve my endurance and overall health.
• Measurable - I will walk 10 minutes a day, four days a week.
• Attainable - I have the time to dedicate to this, and I have a good place to walk in the neighborhood.
• Realistic - I know I can walk for five minutes at a time, so adding another five minutes to each walk is reasonable.
• Time-bound - I will start Sunday and follow this plan for three weeks.

Gradually add time to your walks. Increasing your walks by as few as five minutes per week will add up. If you prefer to measure your progress in steps, add 1,000 extra steps per day every two weeks until you reach 10,000 daily steps. (You might be half of the way there already—according to the American College of Sports Medicine (Sprow, 2019), the average American walks 4,800 steps per day.)

Have a backup plan. If bad weather makes it unsafe to walk outside, designate an indoor shopping mall or track that’s open at a time that's convenient for you to walk. If you know you'll be busy during your normal walking time, block off another part of your day for the walk.

Make it social. Walk with a friend or make it a tradition to take a family walk after dinner. You may even walk further or faster than you would by yourself because your mind is occupied with conversation. Plus, it may help you hold yourself accountable to your goal. A study done by Scarapicchia et al. (2017) showed that there can be a positive association between social support and the ability to stick with an exercise program.

Make it charitable. In addition to giving you a designated distance, a charity walk may fuel you with a stronger sense of purpose, motivating you to sign up for and finish the walk.

Make it competitive. Sign up for a virtual walking program, such as Penn State Extension's "Everybody Walk Across Pennsylvania," a distance challenge in which all participants' miles are added together.

Document your progress. Use an activity tracker that counts your steps, measures your distance, and monitors your heart rate. A simpler, low-cost option is to journal about your workouts in a notebook.

Make it impossible not to walk. Park farther away from the stores when you're running errands. When you're grocery shopping, make extra laps around the store. You can even do laps around your house while you're on the phone. Just do so with caution—distracted walking can be dangerous.

Walking Planner

Use the sample plan below from verywellfit.com (Bumgardner, 2022) to help you create your own eight-week walking plan using the blank table that follows.

Sample Eight-Week Walking Plan

*Intervals: Walk as fast as you can for 30 seconds; then walk slowly for two minutes. Repeat eight to 12 times.

My Eight-Week Walking Plan

References

Bailey, R. R. 2017. "Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change." American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 13 (6): 615–618. Doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634

Bumgardner, W. May 16, 2022. "Walking a 5K Race? 6-Week Beginner Training Plan." Verywellfit.com

Scarapicchia, T. M. F., S. Amireault, G. Faulkner, and C.M. Sabiston. 2017. Social Support and Physical Activity Participation among Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review of Prospective Studies. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology 10: 1, 50–83, DOI: 10.1080/1750984X.2016.1183222

Sprow, K. 2019. Daily Steps and Health—Walking Your Way to Better Health. American College of Sports Medicine.