We have two games of BINGO going on this August, Adult BINGO and FitKids BINGO. That first one isn’t as risque as it sounds, and both of them are a lot of fun. 

I was reviewing the FitKids BINGO sheet with my FitKids class of 6 to 8-year-olds and a little girl made a sarcastic comment. She’s my daughter so the sarcasm is expected, yet not always tolerated. “Hey, you’re just putting this on the BINGO sheet so you can make me go to bed earlier?” 

“I’m not making you go to bed earlier,” I quipped back. “The game is making you go to bed earlier. YOU are making YOU go to bed earlier if YOU want to win the game!” 

She quickly quieted. I knew I hit a soft spot. My daughter really wants to win this game. She even wrote “I am going to win,” at the bottom of her BINGO card. A card that she doesn’t need to know dad created. 

This exchange with my daughter brought to light the beauty of BINGO for me. It’s a fun game where you can win prizes and create some camaraderie or friendly competition among gym friends, but it’s also a way to convince ourselves to do the things we already know we should be doing. 

I need to eat better. I need to drink more water. I need to get to bed earlier. I need to stretch more. I need to not binge drink beer every weekend. There are a lot of things we know we should or shouldn’t be doing if we want to live our fittest, but we are often so busy or preoccupied with just getting our workout in that these other things fall by the wayside. 

The beauty of BINGO is that you get to test drive a handful of new habits without the pressure of a long-term commitment. Hopefully, through trying out these new habits, you find a few that stick. And then those are the habits that help create the lasting change you’ve been looking for. 

It was 17th-century English Poet John Dryden who said, “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” 

Sometimes we need something as silly as a BINGO card to remind us what taking care of our health looks like, because honestly, we’re not all that good at making our own habits. We tend to gravitate towards the paths of least resistance. Our habits of least resistance then make us into overweight, sick, and tired people. 

We need intention and structure to lead us to better habits. Parents play a huge part in creating this structure for their kids. If the parent never learned this structure, how will they teach it to their kids? This is the responsibility I see FitTown having in teaching adults AND kids proper health habits, so they can pass it down to the next generation. 

The BINGO card gives you a visual reminder each day to stay on track and keep chipping away at your unchecked boxes. It is the structure we need to start paying attention to the things that can’t be forgotten. 

This is why we play BINGO, to change lives and get families to take on better health habits together. If you haven’t picked up a BINGO card yet, do so TODAY! And if you have kids, grab cards for them too. 

Let’s take on BINGO together and see what habits can stick for us and change our lives for the better!