What doing pull-ups every day for 365 days taught me
Historians have uncovered countless unfinished works of art by Leonardo da Vinci. But his legacy consists of less than 20 completed paintings. Their hope of completion died with the artist.
Last year I was organizing my office and came across a painting I had started in college, yet never finished. Looking at it reinforced something that's been gnawing at the back of my mind for years: a propensity to not follow through.
Starting is easy. Finishing is not. The last thing I want to leave behind is a heritage of unfinished works.
For the past 365 days, I’ve done 20 pull-ups each day. Whether I was home or away I’ve made certain to do it. Each day I propped my phone up, pressed record, and completed the task.
But the idea was never to show people I could do pull-ups. At first it was a goal I kept to myself.
It began a few weeks before my 35th birthday, one of those milestone birthdays. You see, at age 16 they think you’re qualified to drive a car. At 21 you should be able to handle your alcohol. But at 35 you’re qualified to lead the free world. I certainly wasn’t ready to announce a presidential campaign. But I was ready to end this gnawing I’d been living with.
Thirty-five was to be a year of learning and growth, to be more intentional. So, I came up with an idea. It might sound simplistic. But the plan was to do one thing just hard enough for an entire year.
If I could come up with the right activity, do it for 365 days straight I believed I could strengthen this follow-through muscle.
Did I do it? Well, yes and no. A minor procedure in the middle of the year required I miss a few days. (It wasn’t by choice though. Doctor’s orders demanded I pause my daily pull-ups for 72 hours when I wasn’t “healing like he would’ve liked to see.”)
Outside of that, I did the work each day no matter where I was, how I was feeling, or who was watching. Most days were easy. One 72-hour bout of the flu made it difficult. And travel called for getting creative.
Oftentimes that meant searching out a park to do pull-ups on a crossbar of some sort. Sometimes it meant traveling with a pull-up bar in my suitcase. And other times it meant finding a tree branch strong enough to hold me. Even if that meant the only tree branch available was 50 yards from an outdoor wedding.
I didn't film it to show off my pull-up ability. It was for accountability. It’s one thing to make a goal and keep it to yourself. You can start but also quit too easily. If the thought of quitting crossed my mind I wanted to know that someone would be aware.
Whether people realized it or not, they were in on this plan I made with myself. People would often ask if I had done my pull-ups yet. But that wasn’t the point. I wanted to be accountable to someone besides myself.
I’ve proved I can stick with something long enough. But this goal required a sort of stamina that wouldn’t allow me to rush through to the end.
But left to my own devices, I’m pretty good at finding a reason to quit. “You didn’t set clear terms at the beginning, so give yourself a break.” “No one else is watching, why not stop now?” Or the one that gets me the worst: “Your passion isn’t in it anymore. Move on to something else.”
I wanted to be sure these excuses weren't an option. I designed it so they couldn't be an option.
1. “You didn’t set clear terms at the beginning, so give yourself a break.” The terms were clear: 20 pull-ups every day for 365 days.
2. “No one else is watching, why not stop now?” People were watching. Besides making the commitment to myself, other people were watching as well. Ninety-nine percent had no idea why I was doing what I was doing.
3. “Your passion isn’t in it anymore. Move on to something else.” This wasn't about passion or having fun. It was to learn and grow. Like motivation, passion comes and goes. The pursuit of education doesn't rely so heavily on passion.
Call it what you will: tenacity, resolve, perseverance. I learned a lot along the way to strengthen my stick-to-itiveness.
Try not to lose the sacredness of the task.
There’s nothing sacred about doing pull-ups. They’re neither a form of worship nor adoration.
But there is something special about the act of setting a goal. The journey from beginning to end can feel sacred.
At one point I had to pause my daily pull-ups for a few days. But when I started again 4 days later it wasn’t the same. I had gone over 7 months straight. And I felt deflated when I started again. I felt like I cheated like I had let myself down.
The thought crossed my mind of whether I should stop there. It didn’t feel the same anymore. I broke my perfect streak. My goal felt like it had lost the sacredness it had before.
But then I thought about it. An unbroken streak wasn’t the ultimate goal. It was the education this goal provide. Missing a few days wasn’t going to change that. I wasn’t going to allow myself to quit. So I continued. I did my 20 pull-ups that day and the next.
Live in the middle as if you're the person at the end.
People spend a lot of time considering what their peers or colleagues think of them. For me, it’s my son. I’m not worried about what he thinks of me. But I often imagine future hypothetical conversations where he describes me to his friends. Is it with a sense of pride? Or is it a fleeting comment? One of the saddest things to hear is a boy or grown man speaking ill of his father.
This little exercise provided a lot more time to think than I imagined.
It’s funny how much your mind can wander in the 28 seconds it takes to rep out 20 pull-ups. But this is one of the thoughts I often came back to. I want to be the dad his son is proud of. I knew this practice was going to help. I thought about how nice it will be to reach the 365-day mark with all that I will have learned. I’ll undoubtedly be more disciplined. I’ll be this new, better person. I'll be a dad worthy of the praise of his son.
But then I caught myself: Why wait until the end to be that person? Why not be that person now?
The task doesn’t always get easier.
I assumed I would be doing pull-ups in my sleep by the end. But that’s not exactly how it turned out. Completing 20 pull-ups is certainly easier now than it was at first.
But it’s still one of those things I have to make myself do. I learned a few things to make sure it happened each day. But it didn’t become automatic like I thought it would.
A habit is something you complete without thought. But my 20 pull-ups always required thought. And I often gave it too much.
I found it sitting in the back of my mind as an unchecked item looming on my to-do list. Even though it was just 20 pull-ups, if I didn’t get to it right away it festered.
Some things you just have to show up for. It was a lesson in being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Set your ego aside.
People love to provide unsolicited advice. Whether it was the form of my pull-ups, the speed of my pull-ups, people loved to offer their critique. I was caught off guard the first couple of times. Mostly because I was surprised that anyone cared or paid attention to my pull-ups.
But to be completely honest, I was also self conscious, maybe even a little offended. Who were they to critique my form? I started to allow those things to play on repeat each time I gripped the pull-up bar. Instead of being a practice in personal development, I started thinking about the handful of people who watched my daily upload. Was I going low enough each rep? Was I going too fast?
In his book, Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday explains the way ego can become the hurdle standing in the way of our goals. After all, to do anything noteworthy, you have to be willing to fall flat on your face.
But the ego doesn’t like being embarrassed. It likes to be celebrated, but it doesn’t like being critiqued. The ego would prefer to go through life without looking like an idiot.
But rather than ignore it, I had to lean into it. When I did, I was able to refocus on the purpose of my goal. It wasn’t for attention and it certainly wasn’t to look cool. It was to strengthen my follow through. Perfect form didn’t matter.
Conclusion
So, was it worth it? Absolutely. Not only did I strengthen my follow through, but I learned a lot along the way. Am I going to do it again this next year? No. The purpose, like I said at the beginning, was to improve my ability to follow through. And it worked.
Focussing on a single goal that requires months of methodical action done in isolation flies in the face of the natural tendency to set grand goals with a public audience. But I found it to be far more beneficial. It’s not nearly as exciting as declaring a massive goal. But if you can settle into the simplicity of this method, you’ll experience the benefits you may otherwise miss out on.
First of all, it helped me achieve the intended purpose. And secondly, like a lot of deliberate action, it seeped into the other areas of life.