In December 2020, I was out of shape. I'd been eating poorly, exercising sporadically, and sleeping like any other father with a newborn baby.
Then, to add injury to insult, over the festive period, my wife and I caught norovirus. So we spent a week with vomiting, diarrhoea, and aching joints.
When January rolled around, I knew one thing for sure: it was time for change. I had big goals and fully intended to accomplish them all.
But then my coach at the time, the great Matt Furey, stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Start with one daily exercise goal - and make it small," Matt said.
"Ok, but why? Don't I need to do more than that to get fit?"
"How well has setting big goals worked for you in the past?"
Ok, fair point.
I was sceptical, but the truth was, setting big goals had always ended with overwhelm, frustration, and self-criticism.
So I decided to try what Matt had suggested. In fact, I took it to the extreme, and I set the mind-numbing goal to do...
1 squat a day.
That was my only goal as I entered 2021. No other exercise goals - and no professional, financial, or family goals.
So on January 1st, I did one squat, with very little thought, and moved on. Over the next few days, I began to pay attention to the speed of the movement, the depth of the squat, and the quality of my breathing.
By the end of the first week, I thought, this is easy - I'll try doing 2-3 squats per day. And after a while, 2-3 squats per day was easy, too, so I upped the number again.
By the end of the year, I was doing 100-125 Hindu squats, 15-20 Hindu pushups, and 60-90 seconds of back bridging — plus the occasional run and cycle — every day.
At this point, I felt like a different person. I had more energy. I was lean, flexible, and fast. I wouldn't say my health was optimal. But I'd built a good foundation.
A good foundation for creating even better health, but also for bringing others goals into being, and feeling great doing it.
And… it all started with one squat per day.