Every Day is Push Day: A Reflection on New Year's Resolutions

 Push, pull, legs. The holy trinity of how to split an effective exercise routine, at least according to my friends who actually go to the gym. One of these days, I've told myself for the past five?seven? years, I'm going to become one of those friends. A lifter, a grifter, a protein-powder mixer. 

an example of all three

As you might imagine...I have achieved none of those things. The maze of gym rats seems as unnavigable to the me of 2026 as the me of 2019. Not that there haven't been a few sporadic, ultimately doomed attempts in between. There's been the summer of pilates, or the brief gym membership, the brief adult taekwondo class, or even the New Year's Resolution of 2025, where I found a basic, no-equipment, at-home calisthenics routine to do 6 out of 7 days a week, all 52 weeks a year.

Dear readers, I did not do the calisthenics routine. I failed to to keep it up for even 5 weeks. 

But this is nothing new, nor surprising. It is an often memed-on and joked about state of affairs in society-- we push ourselves to do something remarkable with the rotation of the earth around the sun, and then find ourselves, as ever, distinctly unremarkable people. We are Sisyphus, except we haven't even gotten the boulder up the hill, and we're stumbling back down trying to recover. Well, maybe next year...

 Except even this isn't the truth, is it? The clichés and irony hide the stories of those who do pull through on their new year's resolutions, who make a goal they commit to and come away with a win. I used to be one of those people, ages ago now, and not for anything fitness related. In 2015, I met my reading goal within the first two months of the year. I remember that rush of completion, of feeling accomplished in something personally meaningful. I also remember the late nights, the times I should've gone to bed instead of pushing through to another chapter, but thinking to myself, this is worth it. 

So in 2026, I'm going to try again. I am not in the habit of having ambitious dreams, quite possibly because the fear of failure drives me to stop before I've begun. But like any muscles, one must start small, so I've made my 2026 resolution as austere as I can:

In 2026, I'm going to do 100 pushups every day.

 Okay, okay, that was partially in jest. The bit about the resolution being small, that is, I still plan on doing the pushups. As any gym-bro (gender neutral) will tell you, growing muscles isn't just about your routine, or your goals, or where you start at, or where you end at. 

You also need a spotter. 

2026 marks the first time since 2015 that I'm sharing my resolution with somebody else, somebodys, plural, actually, because I wasn't even the one to initially resolved to do this-- I had another person approach me instead. Now we keep ourselves accountable, check-in daily and provide motivation to push (haha) us over the edge. Our accommodations certainly help as well-- modified pushups are 100% valid in our books, and none of the pushups have to be done sequentially. 

sometimes you need a friend in the ring with you

And, honestly? I think it's working. 

I know, I know, that might be a hasty judgement to make when we're barely 3% into the year. But as of today, Jan. 11, I have a perfect 10-day streak and am already a quarter of the way into today's set as well. Every day I feel a little more improved, a little bit stronger, with more stamina, and I think to myself, this is worth it.

 I have a few other goals for this new year: writing at least 10 days a month, for one, which this blog post helps accomplish, and to read more books. But it starts and ends every day with a tally of how many times I've pushed down against the floor...and pushed myself back up. Maybe it's not as encompassing as a true gym routine would be, and maybe those strength goals I envision for my future as still a ways out of reach. 

But hey, one out of three isn't bad. <\:o)