Resolutions are always a tricky thing. At the beginning of the year, you're still euphoric and full of enthusiasm to finally get going. But at some point, you usually reach the point where you lose motivation and have to force yourself to keep moving towards your goal. And with the lack of motivation, you quickly want to give up. Well, actually there's no shame in giving up, as some people don't even manage to get started.
You should probably just wrap the whole thing up a little differently. In particular, the resolutions you pull out of your hat in the frenzy at new year can easily overwhelm you. You're now supposed to restrain yourself and cut back for the whole year. For many people, this sounds like an eternity, which is probably why they often slow themselves down and cause themselves to fall.
Perhaps it doesn't even have to be the beginning of the year when you have to make a resolution. Any other day of the year is just as suitable. And if you also set yourself a more manageable time frame, you might not even lack motivation. Small steps also lead to the goal, especially if it is not too far away.
Some time ago, on a spontaneous whim and inspiration, I resolved to do one hundred push-ups a day for a month. At the time, one month seemed like a suitable and manageable amount of time, and I just wanted to see if I would be able to push my no longer very athletic body up a hundred times a day with my own arms.
Sure, it was a bit of a torture at first, but I kept it up quite well. After a short time, however, I seemed to get really into it. Where I had initially managed a maximum of twenty push-ups at a time, I was now doing thirty and then even forty.
And then I boldly turned the thirty days into one hundred days. Now I wanted to really push myself to some new level.
At the peak of my push-up challenge, I did four sets of forty push-ups in the morning right after getting up. After that, I was pumped and ready to tackle the day ahead of me.
At the very end of the hundred days, I did get a little sloppy. For a while I was no longer in my comfort zone and the routine I learned was suddenly gone. But in the end, I achieved my goal and proved to myself that I can still achieve a lot with a bit of determination, willpower and perseverance.
And that brings us back to the beginning of this article. For this year I have decided on to do more sport, even if I don't want to announce it loud and proud as my New Year's resolution. I actually don't move that little, but perhaps I should channel this movement into something more meaningful.
That's why I decided to start with push-ups again. I hadn't given them up after the end of the first challenge, but I wasn't doing a hundred a day any more and I wasn't getting down to the floor every day.
But now I'm aiming for a hundred push-ups a day again, at least until the end of this month. It's going quite well so far, and I often feel the spontaneous urge to get going. I usually exceed my daily target and treat myself to a few extra push-ups. To be precise, I even started doing this fun thing before the turn of the year, so I already have a few days advantage.
Well, it's not really fun to be honest. Sport can be fun of course, but push-ups are not part of it. The whole thing is more of a challenge that you have to overcome on your own. But you can still win and somehow it feels good when you've finished.
Let's see how long I can keep it up this time. I haven't set myself a hundred days and I don't expect it to be that long. But especially now in winter, when I don't get out that often, this exercise is a good way to help me achieve my goal of doing more sport. If I supplement the push-ups with a few other exercises, I'll hopefully end up with a proper routine that I can do kinda automatically.
At least I'm not stressing about it. The first step is January and February will show what comes next. And now that I've come to the end of this article, I'm going to get back into my (almost) favorite position. Stretched out long and flat on the floor with my arms bent. And then I will start counting again...
