Rather than giving everything up all the time, why not start something instead?
A month or so back, I spotted a poster advertising ‘Stoptober’ on a train as I was pulling into Waterloo, encouraging its viewers to give up cigarettes for a month and take on the 28 day “stop smoking challenge”. Later, Brandwave’s account manager Oliver declared he was not to drink any alcohol for his ‘Stoptober’ sacrifice… I was thoroughly unimpressed. It became apparent that yet another health campaign was launching itself into the veins of Britain, encouraging the general public to give up everything fun and to be mega healthy instead.
October is surely the one month that people should drink, as a tool to help ease ourselves from the long hot days of summer, into the bleak winter months to come. Don’t get me wrong, I think that a lot of people should be encouraged to try to hit addictions on the head, however I do not see why an anti-smoking campaign is now becoming an anti-fun campaign!
I realised that I must retaliate before this got out of hand. If you never give anything up, you’re never going to let yourself down – so give up giving up things! Why not start something instead?
Last weekend team Brandwave took part in SUPBIKERUN, an off-road triathlon that we got manically fit for, as a result it felt pretty great to be active and outdoors regularly again and I needed another motivation to carry this on… Thus, throughout the whole of October 2014, I now challenge myself to at least half an hour of exercise a day, everyday, whilst not give up anything. I am still developing the rules of this little scheme, but fundamentally the daily exercise has to be cardiovascular (yoga for example does not count) and 30 minutes (minimum) time spent in exertion. Anything over 30 minutes and you can award yourself with drinks, cakes, sweets or maybe a gold star if you want to be really well behaved. It’s really nice to be fit and maintain health by being active, just half an hour of being outside is all you need to transform a day and break routine.
Giving up drinking and yummy foods is not only boring to yourself, it’s boring for everyone else around you. Nobody wants to be that person at a party holding up a glass of water for a birthday toast… I’m a firm believer that we should never give up doing fun stuff, and sometimes the human race needs to remember that the odd drink or slice of cake is a part of the spirit that feeds our soul (obviously eat and drink responsibly, any addictions that might develop from November I refuse to be responsible for).
