That's It?

I’ve been tracking my pushups since mid 2008 and passed the quarter million plateau yesterday. I’ve been staring at that number - 250,000. It’s a big number but at the same time I can’t help but think - is that all? There is no doubt that 50,000 pushups/year is a pretty decent pace. Yet I feel like I have been doing pushups for so long that my total should be in the millions, not just 250,000.

Before I started tracking my numbers I had a lot of false assumptions about the state of my training. I had become complacent and in retrospect - lazy. When I don’t record my numbers I tend to be aware of everything I am doing but completely oblivious of everything I am not doing. I have wasted many years of potential progress that I can never get back.

My daily training journal has stopped the bleeding of wasted time. I can no longer lie to myself over how hard I am training because numbers are quantifiable and they do not lie.

For me, mastery is found in exploiting every opportunity for growth and recognizing those opportunities in every moment of every day.

“Stop the mindless wishing that things would be different. Rather than wasting time and emotional and spiritual energy in explaining why we don't have what we want, we can start to pursue other ways to get it.” - Greg Anderson (b. 1964)