A few years ago, I stopped making yearly resolutions. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t disagree with them and have seen them work for other people. But not once have they worked for me. Even if I paste up reminders and try to put processes in place, I still can’t do it.
It’s stifling and restrictive, and every time I remember that I haven’t accomplished them yet, I just feel guilty.
I prefer what I’m doing now on my fitness initiative. It started with a spontaneous desire to get fitter, especially for the basketball tournament near the end of last year, and I just built some basic rules around it: minimum 20 minutes, need to sweat out, three times a week. And when I don’t accomplish it on a certain week, I already have a penalty set up – I feel the pain of missing the exercise target but don’t carry the guilt further.
So for this year, I’m not going to set some encompassing fitness resolutions for the year once again, but I feel ready enough to set some goals to reflect back on once December comes.
- General goal: To be fitter, stronger and to have more muscle tone in December than now
- 10 proper pull ups: I’m currently stuck on 3
- 50 proper push-ups: I’m currently at 30
- 2 minute plank: I’m terrible at this – only 40 seconds right now
- To be able to deadlift my own weight (58kg)
- 5km run in 25 minutes
- Maybe, just maybe, finish 21km in an official run event…
It's interesting to note that each of these goals are fundamentally in areas I hate.
Pull ups are one of the toughest things to do in the world and I feel like screaming every time I do it. But I would proud to be able to do 10 at one time with proper form - not kipling, not chin ups, not half extensions. All the way down and all the way up - slow, steady and controlled.
I've never been able to do push ups properly ever since I hurt my right wrist in my embarrassing season of dabbling in break dancing when I was 15 years old. There were a few moves that I could do but I didn't know when to quit and hurt myself pretty badly trying something called a 'Flare'. It's never really stopped hurting and so I wasn't able to do the push up motion. But I've been starting to use dumb bells for grips in my gym sessions to do them and would like to build up more upper body strength.
Somehow, I'm truly pathetic when doing the basic plank. I hear about female friends doing more than a minute without breaking a sweat but after 20 seconds, my whole body is shaking and my core feels like it's about to burst. I don't know if something is fundamentally wrong with my body for planks but I'm going to improve in this.
And finally, running is something I've avoided for a long time. I've never taken part in a running event, never run more than 10 minutes on a treadmill and never gone for distance running although many of my friends love it. It's rather boring, low intensity cardio and takes far more will power than most people realise. Every time I step out of my home and try to run a couple of kilometers, I think about stopping every step of the way.
This year is going to be different. I feel it in my heart and I really want to see what I can accomplish on the fitness front.
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