New Year's Goals
New year, new ambitions, and new routines. We hear it all the time and it has an effect on me every single year. Usually I'll give them thought and set them up with realistic goals. But each goal I set has to be backed by the proper motivation, a strong belief, and a serious commitment if I am ever going to conquer them.
Take 2021 for example. The chart seen here consists of data points I recorded throughout 2021 and plotted over a 365 day period in a Google Sheet. I was overweight and didn't fit into any of my clothes because of the pandemic. My new year's resolution was to obviously lose weight as the priority, but it was also to resurrect a pushup goal that I once had about a decade prior. Pushups, to me, were always a measure of physical accomplishment and masculinity perhaps because of all the military movies I grew up watching back in the 80's that emphasized hardcore basic training scenes and disciplinary measures that sort of stuck with me. But so in 2021, I decided to include pushups once again as part of my new year's goals.
The pushup goal that I developed was unique because it was measured on the quantity of consecutive pushups I had to complete on that calendar day of the year. So for example, day 1 was January 1st , so I had to do one consecutive pushup on that calendar day of the year. That was fine. But this also meant that on December 31st I had to do 365 pushups on that calendar day of the year, consecutively, which obviously wasn't so fine. I knew it was going to be a challenge, especially with no other weight training involved, but I still decided to do it anyway.
About 4 weeks into it, I realized that I had to break up pushups into sets if I wanted to hit my daily goal. Once that adjustment was made, I was able to hit my daily goals all year long. On the final day of the year I completed 365 pushups in 4 sets of consecutive pushups, around 100 each, that were completed in 5-minute intervals. This was by far the best new year's goal I ever designed for myself.
My goals for 2022 and 2023 were pathetic in comparison. In 2022, while living off the fumes of some big pushup achievements, and owning what was what I would consider a very good physique for my age, I decided to start playing basketball again. There I was, at the ripe age of 46, trying to come out of retirement and compete with 30-year-olds on a basketball court. Things were slow in the beginning but the conditioning eventually started to come back. All was going well for me until one night when I went up for a rebound and I collided with another guy who's shoulder slammed directly into my chest cavity in mid air. I felt a dull snap from the impact and I had the breath knocked out of me momentarily. My adrenaline was so high that I didn't feel it initially, but the pain from it resonated in the days that followed and it ultimately prevented me from playing again in fear of a reoccurrence. It also prevented me from doing pushups, and it still to this day aches off and on whenever I sneeze. It was decimating.
But this year in 2024 my goals are slightly different. Weight loss isn't as big as it was in years prior, but I have a renewed focus on cardio. My goal is 30 minutes per day on the treadmill - no excuses. But perhaps the most challenging goals that I've set for myself this year are focused on my mental routines and my mental health. Tactically, I've set up a new 30-minute studying routine for exam preparation for certification that is due to expire later in the year, and I'm also looking at fighting my anxiety through counseling for the first time. This I know seems like something that shouldn't be so scary to embark on since it's so common these days, but for me it's the practice of being vulnerable that scares me and what judgements that come from it. Opening up is just not a natural thing for me to do. But I am writing about it right now, which is a start.
Chess, by the way, continues to be another daily habit for me this year too. That probably won't go away in the foreseeable future.
