I’m doing a federal employee fitness challenge with some coworkers at work, and I have to say, now that I actually get how it works, I’m pretty impressed with how robust and well balanced it is. Instead of just focusing on physical activity, you earn most of your “dollars” (similar to points, but dollars, because the challenge is called Feel Like A Million) from getting enough sleep, suspending judgement, having a meaningful connection, doing an outside morning activity, and eating balanced meals. (The dollars don’t pay out to anything at the end of the challenge – it’s just for motivation.)
Each of those core items is worth $10,000, so if you do all 5 each day, you earn $50,000. You can earn up to $25,000 more a day for adding physical activity, for a max of $75,000 a day, but physical activity won’t make up for missing one of the core items. So if I did a long run but didn’t get enough sleep, I could only earn $65,000 for the day (since I am filling it out honestly, ha).
This really makes me think about balance, and all the things that are important to being healthy beyond physical activity. As someone who has been so focused on physical activity only for many years, this is a really good mind shift.
And honestly, starting to do this challenge while I was in Denver and seeing I could never max out on dollars is what encouraged me to make sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Which I did not last night:
Womp womp. I’m doing better with sleep overall though!
The app also has daily trivia, tips, recipes, a chat board, a leaderboard, etc etc. And I LOVE that it’s an app that syncs to my Garmin. It makes it so much easier for me to log on the daily.
I’m glad my coworker Rebecca invited me to join her team. I will be a bit bummed when the challenge ends on October 1!
Looks like a cool app! Is it available to anyone or just through your organization? We do these challenges at work too but they are not comprehensive like this. They are focused on steps or physical activity.
It’s only for federal employees for this particular challenge, I think. That would be cool if your work did something like this!
That sounds like a really well thought out challenge! Also that they include something like suspending judgement – they are really looking for balance in well being. Were your daily behaviors tailored specifically to you, or does everyone go for the same ones?
Everyone gets the same ones! That would be really interesting if you took a quiz to start and they were all tailored specifically!
This is really cool! I’m going to have to see if there is something similar that I could recommend to my organization. I love that it’s not focused on just working out/eating healthy but also getting sleep, being outside, etc. I’m glad you’re enjoying the challenge!
I hope there is! I feel much more motivated by this one than the one I did last month which was all hours spent working out.
Is this an official federal employee challenge? I have never heard of it. Very cool though.
Yeah! It was sponsored by the FEB and GEHA!
But, see, here’s the thing: Even when I TRY to get more than 6 hours of sleep, unless I’m sick? I just can’t. So I’d flunk this challenge every day! You were rocking it, though. I hope you got a lot of “dollars” in the end. 🙂
Your body wants less than 6?