“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
—Lao Tzu
As we begin a new year of goals, I want reiterate the cumulative effect of small progressions. Whatever the goal, one can get there by moving in that direction. In exercise science, we refer to it as “progressive overload”.
Break down your goals and have a plan. Plan your steps and don’t just determine an outcome. Sometimes, making the steps the goal can prove more successful than making the end result the goal. For example, losing 50 pounds can seem daunting. Losing one pound a week (an approximate 3500 kcal weekly deficit) is more conceivable, and, at the end of a year, you are actually down 52 pounds! Break it down further, 3500 kcal is 500 kcal per day. What combination of small lifestyle changes—physical activity, diet, and exercise—can get you to a 500 kcal deficit? Small steps. Baby steps!
I wrote recently about starting Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 lifting program. I was skeptical at first, but I am loving it. I am already seeing steady progress. Continuing at this program (using four-week training cycles), I will see a 130 lb increases in my squat and deadlift (assuming 13 cycles) and 65 lb increases in my bench and press. Best of all, my maxes will be performed with excellent technique because I am not forcing the gains. (I have always had a habit of losing depth in the squat as I neared maximal weight, because of fear of getting stuck or injured.) Personally, I believe my technique is better now than it was 10 weeks ago.
The program doesn’t matter so much as simply doing the work, allowing for recovery, and going up in a planned progression.
Improving cardiorespiratory endurance is no different. Ever consider that adding just one yard (3 feet) of distance a day to a run or walk will have you running or walking an extra 365 yards (almost a ¼ mile) in a year. That is a small amount, but it is just one more step a day. Imagine now adding 50 steps a day (150 feet). That’s 2600 yards (~1.5 miles). The cumulative effect of this is even greater. And, of course, one can be more ambitious.
How about Intellectual well-centeredness? Reading one page a day would be like nothing, but it is roughly a book a year. How much of a challenge is reading 10 pages? Consider starting with just a page a day the first week and adding a page more a day every week for the year. By year’s end, you will be reading 52 pages a day. How many books does that become?
The same can be done by removing bad habits—cutting calories, cutting alcohol, smoking cessation, etc. Small daily changes add up. Multiple small changes are summative. Change doesn’t have to be big to be effective.
Make 2019 the year of progress rather than another year of goals. Don’t just look at the mountains. Start climbing!
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!
