DAY 19: Of resolutions and the extra mile

I hope you are all gearing up for a great and safe NYE.  All is well in Costa Rica.  Yesterday involved surfing Tamarindo and hanging with the fam. Many of you will be thinking deeply about resolutions and changes for 2014.  I actually love this time of year for snippets of sort of quiet reflection on what I would improve upon for the next year.

In the past I know that I personally tried to change to much, as do most people.  They want to eat better, spend time with the family, get more fit or lose weight and the like.  The problems I think most folks have is that not only can these changes be drastic, they haven't thought about HOW they are going to get there, and these goals aren't specific.  I talked a little about this in this post on goal setting on DAY: 4.

Tomorrow, I will be announcing the Second Annual Freshjunkie Racing Endurance challenge.  I encourage every single one of you to join in.  It isn't hard.  It will require 20 mins a day for 1/5/10/30/90/120/180/270/365  days.  It is static.  Choose a goal and agree to walk, jog, strength train, ride a bike, do gymnastics, paddle, swim or anything else for 20 minutes a day for as many days as you choose.  I will be giving out prizes at different days along the way and we will have a google spreadsheet or the like for tracking purposes as well as a FB group.  I'll post up an email so you can request an invite.

I'll leave you with one more thought on goals and how pushing your limits can be done every day.  Today, I again went out for a hot run in Costa Rica.  I ran the same route as the other day, but there was a hill that I saw that I wanted to run up.  It came at about 6 miles into my run.  I wanted to go home and jump in the pool and begin relaxing but agreed with myself that I'd go at least until I walked the first time.  I stopped, and gathered myself.  And then I went up.  And up.  After a minute I walked and said eff it, I'll go to the top.  When I got there I was greeted by a rock outcropping and a full view of all the cove.  Well worth it.

All it took was agreeing to go outside my comfort zone.  When setting  your resolutions.  Go outside your zone.  Just be specific and agree to the first steps.