Get Out More Often – A Challenge for Today

What are you doing today? Are you at work? Stuck in the office until 6pm this evening? Are you in the car? On the train? Off to visit relatives? Travelling to a meeting? Maybe you’re at home with a huge list of household chores to get done (like me)?

Go out and explore the woodland down the road.

I have a challenge for you. It’s very (very) simple. Go out. Give yourself one hour, and go outside. I’m not sure what the weather is like where you are but it doesn’t matter – put an overcoat on if you need to, but just go out. I don’t mind what you actually do while you’re out; walk, meet a friend, mooch around the shops, take photographs. I don’t mind if you go alone or a whole bunch of other people. Just go out. Outside. Get some fresh air and natural light at some point today. Even if you are the busiest person in the world, make time and go out. Today. Whatever day it is when you are reading this.

There are lots of reasons why you should take me up on this instruction. And you’ll know that this isn’t actually my idea. We are constantly being told we should grab some outdoors time every day to help with all kinds of thing – to de-stress, wake up, get motivated, burn some calories, top up on vitamin D. I often try and encourage people who read my blog to heed this advice and to get outside and enjoy some fresh air every day, but how many of us actually do it? I can quickly hold my hand up here and say even though I write about it all the time I don’t always follow my own warnings.

Go out and explore a little street in town.

Today, though, I have been inspired by someone else. And no this isn’t an advert or a sponsored post or anything like that, it is simply an acknowledgement. Eventbrite has been hoping to get people into going out more often- GOMO. Now in their world “going out” is a whole range of things that include concerts and lectures and trade shows and the rest. But for me “going out” is so very simple – putting on some suitable shoes and heading out of the front door. Going out is about having experiences, it’s about little moments and huge adventures, mostly of all it’s about seeing things for real.

Now we are in October, and the weather is turning more and more autumnal by the hour, and all the television channels have rolled out their “stay inside” programming, it’s a little more difficult to get motivated to do anything other than snuggle up on the sofa or eat all the roast dinners. But getting out more often is even more important as the nights draw in than it is in the summer – because it’s so good for us. So don’t argue, or find excuses, find an hour today and go out.

Life is all about the journey. Take yours outside!

I’d love to hear from you on this topic. Do you make time to get out more often? Are you susceptible to spending weeks inside during Autumn and Winter? What keeps you inside? Did you take me up on my little challenge? Where did you go for your one hour outside today? (If you took a photo during your hour share it on instagram or twitter with #SplodzBlogz so I can see it.) If I set you a more challenging get outside task – say an hour a day for a whole month – would you take part?