When you first think about or are actually attempting to walk 10,000 steps per day it seems totally doable, doesn’t it? I mean, walking 10,000 steps isn’t some intense gym workout nor is it a marathon.
But most people find that after a few days, the initial motivation is gone and it starts to seem like a huge chore. Whether it’s because of boredom, super busy schedules, inconveniences or even something like bad weather. Generally, you’ll find that many people can’t keep up with it and drop out before a week even passes.
If you’re interested in walking 10,000 steps daily, this doesn’t have to be your story. You can totally start walking 10,000 steps and keep it up for months, if not years if you rely on a few smart systems instead of only motivation.
And I’ll share some useful tips to help you get those steps in everyday without feeling like you’re …
1. Stop Treating 10,000 Steps Like One Big Workout
This is one of the most important things to pay attention to if you actually want to stick to this.
For the average person, walking 10,000 steps takes approximately 80 to 100 minutes per day. That’s one of the main reasons so many people struggle to stay consistent since it’s very hard to find that extra hour and a half every day.
Besides the time, it’s also just plain overwhelming. Believe me, I’ve tried it and it felt like torture.
Which is why breaking up an hour-and-a-half walk into smaller chunks throughout the day can be your saving grace.
Here is a great example you can try:
- 2,000 steps in the morning
- 2,000 steps during lunch
- 3,000 steps in the afternoon
- 3,000 steps after dinner
My favorite trick is getting my first 2,000 steps during my 5 A.M. morning routine. I simply spend 20 to 30 minutes walking before breakfast. Not only does it help wake me up, but it also means I start the day already having completed a significant portion of my daily step goal. Mentally, reaching 10,000 steps feels much easier when I only have 7 to 8,000 left instead of the full 10,000.
2. Use A Walking Pad To Make 10,000 Steps Easier
If there’s one thing that makes reaching 10,000 steps easier for thousands of people, it’s a walking pad.
Especially since most people stop walking because of all the little things that get in the way. Individually, none of these things seem like a big deal, and you don’t think they’ll make it hard for you to get up and walk, but when they start piling up day after day, they can completely derail your walking routine.
Maybe you don’t feel like getting dressed.
Maybe you don’t feel like driving to the gym.
Maybe it’s still dark outside.
Maybe it’s already dark outside.
Or perhaps it’s just too hot that day
Maybe it’s just been too rainy.
Or, you’re just too tired.
Or have work to do.
Immediately, what was meant to be a simple walk starts to feel like another task on your already overflowing to-do list.
This is exactly why I love my walking pad. It makes it so that instead of having to carve out a separate hour for exercise, I can simply walk while doing something I was already planning to do anyway.
Here’s what I really mean:
Watching your favorite Netflix show? Walk.
Catching up on YouTube videos? Walk.
Scrolling TikTok? Walk.
Listening to a podcast? Walk.
Answering emails? Walk.
Sitting through another virtual meeting that could have been an email? Walk.
You can even just set your walking pad up near your TV and binge your favorite series while getting your steps in. Also, if you work from home, you can place your walking pad underneath a standing desk and walk while you work.
If you work from home, a standing desk makes a walking pad dramatically more useful. Being able to answer emails, attend meetings, and work while getting your steps in can make reaching 10,000 steps feel much easier.
The best part is that it doesn’t really feel like exercise because you’re not staring at a wall and counting down the minutes until you’re done. You’re actually doing something enjoyable while your steps quietly add up in the background and before you know it, you’ve accumulated a few thousand extra steps without ever feeling like you had to go out of your way to exercise.
That is why for anyone who works from home, struggles with consistency, hates dealing with bad weather, or simply finds outdoor walking inconvenient, a walking pad can be a complete game changer.
It removes so many of the excuses that can easily derail a walking routine and makes hitting 10,000 steps doable. Plus, it does not take up a ton of space and can even be stored under a surface, for those of you with a smaller home.
Sometimes, I still can’t believe I resisted buying one for so long because I assumed it was just all hype and it would end up collecting dust in a corner like most of the other exercise gadgets I’d bought before. I was wrong. It’s been my lifesaver when it comes to getting my steps in.
Want an easy way to get more steps in without buying a bulky treadmill? This walking pad gives you a simple, space-saving way to move more at home, even on busy days. It’s a practical, budget-friendlier option for small spaces and makes it so much easier to stay consistent with daily movement.
3. Make Walking Your Entertainment Time
Above I explained how a walking pad and some form of entertainment makes it easier to keep up with your 10,000 daily steps. And I stand by this. Because walking for 80–100 minutes every day, even though you may break up the walks, it’s BORING.
The boredom alone can make you give up. So to avoid this, try listening to your favorite podcasts, audio books, shows, or watch YouTube while walking especially if you’re using a walking pad.
If not, you can try walking outside, but try to choose places that are interesting to you, like walking by the beach, through a pretty neighborhood, around a park, or anywhere else you’ll enjoy exploring. For me sometimes, it’s the mall. I can walk there browsing the aisles for a whole hour! Some days, a change of scenery can make a walk feel less like exercise and more like a small outing you’re looking forward to.
Try TikTok Dances When Walking Feels Boring
Another fun way to sneak in extra steps is by learning TikTok dances. It sounds silly, but it actually really works.
When you’re dancing, you’re moving, stepping, turning, repeating the same few moves, and before you know it, your step count starts climbing without it feeling like a workout.
This is very helpful on days when walking sounds too tedious but you still want to move your body and get those steps in.
Put on a few songs, try a dance tutorial, laugh at yourself a little, and let those steps add up.
You don’t even have to be good at it. I certainly am not. You just need the movement and you’ll certainly get it there.
4. Create A Backup Plan For Bad Weather Or Busy Days
Now, this does not really apply to you if you’re using a walking pad. But, I know not everyone is willing to get one, so if you plan to thug it out, then make sure you prepare some backup plans for the days when you can’t do your regular walks.
Because most walking routines don’t fail on perfect days. Instead, they fall apart when unexpected things happen, like a few days of rain, a very busy work schedule, a family emergency, etc.
So, if you normally walk outdoors, it’s a good idea to decide ahead of time what you’ll do when outdoor walking isn’t an option. Some ideas include walking around your local mall, heading to the gym, using a walking pad or even pacing around your house or apartment.
The exact solution doesn’t matter nearly as much as having one does.
So please make a few backup plans so you won’t end up with an excuse when the day doesn’t go as planned.
I use this for most walks to listen to podcasts, audio books, music, or YouTube videos. If boredom is your biggest obstacle to walking, these can help make walking time more enjoyable.
5. Stop Thinking All 10,000 Steps Have To Come From Official Walks
One mistake a lot of beginners make is thinking that every step has to come from an official walk.
It doesn’t.
Anything that gets you moving counts. Think things like walking while grocery shopping, walking while cleaning, walking while pacing during phone calls, dancing, walking around at work, walking around your house and the list goes on.
This is very important to know because the second you stop treating 10,000 steps like one big formal workout, the entire goal will start to feel a lot less intimidating.
It makes it so that you’re not trying to go exercise all day, but you’re simply looking for small ways to add more movement in the form of steps into the life you’re already living.
Besides walking on a treadmill, on a walking pad or longer walks outdoors. You can also fit quite a bit of steps into your everyday tasks. Here are a few great real life examples that I use:
Walking during phone calls. Whether you’re at home or at work, if you get on a call, pace around instead of sitting down. Some days, I can get over 3,000 steps while chatting with my loved ones or taking a work call.
Also, you can park further away from your destination and walk the rest of the way. Then walk back. This can get you anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand extra steps depending on the distance.
If your workplace has space to walk like a long corridor, get up every hour and do 5 minutes of walking or find other ways to move around more at work. Your coworkers may look at you strangely though, so keep this in mind if you’re a bit on the shy side.
When I go out shopping, I usually make sure to walk through every aisle—sometimes even a few times just so I can get those steps in. I especially do this on the days I don’t feel like using my walking pad.
When you’re waiting for food, laundry or appointments, get a few extra steps in there too.
These are just a few examples, but there are so many ways to bake extra steps into your regular daily chores. You just have to find those things that work for your life and lean into them a little more intentionally. These can add up to a few extra thousand steps per day.
6. Switch up Your Walking Routes To Avoid Boredom
You don’t need to stick to one route. Switch things up to keep your outside walks more interesting. Some people do so by exploring different neighborhood routes, park routes, beach routes, shopping area routes or even throwing in some indoor walking every now and then.
7. Use The 10 Minute Rule
Sometimes, you don’t have the time or the motivation for longer walks. I’ve shared a few ways you can break things up above, but this is another method that can help you stick to your daily walking.
Committing to just 10-minute increments is especially good for those low-motivation days when bigger/longer walking increments just seem like too huge a mountain to climb.
You just need movement, not perfection, so get it in however you can so as not to quit. And if 10 short walks is how you can do it on that day, then do that! You’ll thank yourself tomorrow.
8. Stop Obsessing Over Perfect 10,000-Step Days
Another thing that can make it harder for many people to get their steps in is the pursuit of perfection. It’s very unlikely that you’ll get perfect 10,000 step days everyday. That’s just not realistic.
Some days you’ll get as much as 12,000 steps without even realizing you did it, and other days you’ll struggle to get past 7,500 steps and this is totally normal and completely fine. You’re still getting quite a bit of movement even with 7,500 steps — That’s still 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes total walking for that day! This is still a lot more movement than most people are getting.
Instead of just your daily steps (which you may still love to track) weekly averages are a more important measure instead of focusing on one imperfect day.
If you can get yourself out of the all-or-nothing mindset, this will go a very long way in helping you keep up with your daily steps for a very long time.
For instance, when I first started trying to walk daily, I messed up a lot in the first two weeks. I had a lot of extra pounds to carry, I had come from barely 1,000 steps daily to trying for 8,000-10,000 steps daily, that was a big leap that took some getting used to and I did not start with my walking pad so the first few weeks were extremely mundane — I can’t fit outside walks in consistently and I was slightly ashamed in the beginning anyways. Because of all these reasons, I had to walk round and round in my home to get all of those steps in.
Suffice it to say, I did not get perfect 10,000 steps days every day for at least the first two weeks, but I kept going anyways. You can totally do the same. Don’t give up because a day or even a few isn’t perfect at first. If you’re just getting into walking, it will take some time to adjust. Even after adjusting so days will happen that will make it impossible to stick to your streak. You’re human. Just get backup as soon as you can.
Also, If you were averaging 1,000-3,000 steps daily before deciding to do 10,000 you don’t need to jump straight into this huge number. You can try to do 5,000 first. Then 7,500 until you’ve worked your way up.
9. Make Walking Feel Rewarding
I don’t know if you’re like this too, but in addition to everything else making my walks rewarding has been integral in helping me to keep this up.
I do so by tracking my streaks via my step tracker app. There’s just something about seeing how far you’ve come that makes you not want to break that good streak.
If you're like me and hate carrying your phone everywhere, some type of wearable can be incredibly helpful so you don't miss any steps from regular daily activities.
More times than I’d like to admit, I’ve gotten up and walked simply because I didn’t want to be the person who broke a streak I’d worked so hard to build.
Besides that, I like to pair my walk with fun things like music or a show I’ve been wanting to watch or a video that I want to see. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done a 40 minute walk on my walking pad while bingeing the latest upload from my favorite Youtuber. I also love listening to music, so sometimes I just turn on my favorite playlist and go.
Also, make walking feel like self-care instead of a punishment. Instead of the mindset that you’re doing it because you’re feeling guilty, ate something unhealthy or are trying to lose weight. Think of it as time you get to spend listening to your favorite podcast, catching up on an audio book, enjoying some fresh air, watching your favorite show on a walking pad, or simply taking a break from the stresses of the day.
Some of my favorite walks aren’t the ones where I burn the most calories. They’re the walks that help me to clear my head or enjoy something interesting. These walks literally feel like they fly by!
Most people think that getting 10,000 steps daily requires them to throw on workout clothes, lace up their sneakers, head outside, and do some intense, fast-paced, exercise-y type of walk.
Like you need to be power walking around your neighborhood, swinging your arms, breathing hard, and treating it like a full-on cardio session.
But that’s not the only way to do it.
You can flip that dreaded boring 80–100 minutes of high-speed walking into a calm, casual system of getting 10k daily steps that’s baked into your daily life.
Things like finding ways to break the larger 10,000 steps up between 4–5 smaller walks, making your walks a little more fun instead of mundane, getting those steps in through your daily tasks, getting yourself a walking pad so you can make the walks entertaining while doing so, or finding fun outside routes that you really enjoy. And please, make sure you have some backup plans for when life does not go as planned.
These are going to be your saving grace.
Because let’s face it, the minute walking stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like something that simply happens throughout your day, you’re a lot more likely to stay consistent.
And even if you do start doing just a few of these things, you’ll be that much closer to getting those 10K steps in without quitting by day 4.
Ready To Start Walking More?
If you want a simple plan to help you reach 10,000 steps without overthinking it, download my free 10,000-Step Walking Planner.
It includes:
- 3 ready-made 10,000 steps walking schedules
- A customizable step plan
- A 30-day streak tracker
- Printable pages you can start using today
Download The Free Walking Planner
This is my own routine for now. I wake up early and get my first 2,000–3,000 steps before 5:40 a.m. Then I settle down from 7:30 a.m.–8:00 a.m and work until 12 p.m. without thinking of anything else. Just uninterrupted work. Then I eat my first meal and do anything else that needs getting done. At 2:20 pm my first alarm goes off and I get up and do one of two things: Jump on my walking pad for 15 minutes or jump on TikTok and start learning dance tutorials for 15 minutes. Doing either of these gives me an extra 1,500 steps each time and I repeat this process for at least 3 times for the day at 3:30 p.m, 4:20 p.m and 5:20 p.m.
On the days when I don’t feel like walking or dancing, I walk while taking calls or out running errands. I do any amount of things to get them in. It’s never the same thing because I just want to keep moving regardless of how.
That’s really all there is to getting those 10,000 steps each day. No secret hack. No magical shortcut. Just finding simple ways to move more throughout your day and making the process enjoyable enough that you actually stick with it.
