21.28.30.90?

A Google search will give you differing answers as to how long it takes to form a habit. I suppose a self-search might give you the right answer.

I've decided to go with 28, because that's what my fourth-grade teacher always said. So I figured I'd test it out. I've never worked on my upper-body strength, and it's rather obvious, but I can't say I ever really cared. I've always been a runner, even though that's hard to say. In college I'd run for 20-30 minutes about 4x a week. To me, a runner is someone who runs for an hour at a time. When I lived in Honduras, I got up to running an hour for a while. Then I moved back to the states, got two jobs and returned to the 20-30 minute thing ... when I can.

So the newest thang: doing pushups. My fiance's arm muscles are defined and HUGE. (This is my blog and I write my opinion) He can do quite a few pushups ... the kind where your nose touches the ground and your back is flat ... after not doing them for a long time. This seems to be a law of nature when it comes to men vs. women, or maybe the men in my life vs. me. Anyhow, I wanted to start working on that strength, so I did.

If I do my pushups tonight, I'll be at day 26. On Thursday, the habit will officially kick in. I think, though, it already has.

I get sleepy pretty quickly, and there have been a few times where I'll lay in bed and be on the verge of zonking out. "OH NO" my head pops up out from under the covers, like a sixth-grader remembering its Science Project day (thanks Brian R.) and I realize that two minutes later and I would have kicked myself in the morning, having to start the counting all over again.

Somehow the brain forms a new pathway, and it alerts me when I'm slacking. I'm not very good at doing pushups, in fact, as for the nosedive kind, I can only do about ten at a time. But for the other, simpler kind (the man-version but nose not touching the floor), I'm now able to do about 50 at a time — a feat near impossible 26 days ago.

It really is amazing and revolutionary when it comes to changing patterns: ridding old or gaining new. I'm a visual person, most people are. So having a calendar with the numbers on them, reminds me of my accomplishments and that my body is subject to my mind.

Life is, whether we want it to be or not, a pattern of habits. It's good to be aware of the habits I want to form ... and well, start pushing.