I have recently written about the growth mindset. When you have a growth mindset, you believe that your basic abilities can be improved with hard work and practice.

There are plenty things in my life I want to improve. However, I'm going to start with exercise. I've previously tried and failed to form exercise habits. None of my attempts have made any lasting improvements. This time I want it to be different. This time I'm going to make it so easy I can't fail.

The plan

There are lots of exercise plans out there. Far too many in fact. I once tried the one hundred push ups training program but never stuck to it. I could write a whole article about why new habits fail. I'll save that for later. Right now, I want to form the habit of doing push ups. I want it to be simple, easy and repeatable daily.

My plan is to do exactly two push ups every single morning this week. Next week, I will do exactly four push ups every single morning. The week after, exactly six push ups every single morning.

And so on. In just under a year, I will be doing 100 push ups a day (hence the title).

So easy I can't fail

I can currently do seven good-form push ups. In some ways, doing just two per day in the first week feels too easy. I already know that it's not going to be challenging. However, that's the point. It's supposed to be easy.

I don't know if my plan will eventually become too hard. I might have to add rest days or short rests between sets of push ups. I'll just have to see how it goes.

James Clear has written a lot about how slow gains add up quickly. I want this new habit to stick. I trying to do that by keeping it easy and simple and doing it every single day.

Progress

I'm also writing about it on this blog for public accountability. In fact, rather than just writing this post and forgetting about it, I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to keep a log of the exact number of push ups I do every day and place it right here.

 Week starting   Mo   Tu   We   Th   Fr   Sa   Su 
--------------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
    2014-09-29    2    2    2    2    2    2    2 
    2014-10-06    4    4    4    4    4    4    4 
    2014-10-13    6    6    6    6    6    6    6 
    2014-10-20    8    8    8    8    8    8    8 
    2014-10-27   10   10   10   10   10   10   10 
    2014-11-03   12   12   12   12   12   12   12 
    2014-11-10   14   14   14   14   14   14   14 
    2014-11-17   16   16   16   16   16   16   16 
    2014-11-24    0   18   18   18   18   18   18 
    2014-12-01   20   20   20   20    0    0    0 
    2014-12-08    0    0    0    0    0   20   20 
    2014-12-15   22   22   22   22    0    0   22 
    2014-12-22   24   24   24    0   24    0    0 
    2014-12-29    0    0   26   26    0    0    0 
    2015-01-05    0    0    0    0    0    0    0

[Edit: I stuck to this habit for eight weeks before missing my first day which I'm pretty pleased with. I then continued for another ten days before I got ill for a week. After that it seemed much harder to complete each day. I also think I didn't include enough rest time. Some days, my muscles were just too sore before I even did my first push up. Overall it was a great experiment and I'm proud I managed to stick to it for so long. Next time, I try something like this, I think I should do something to plan for sick days and rest days.]