If it wasn’t already hard enough to keep a New Year’s resolution in past years, 2021 has found a way to escalate the challenge:
Dear person trying to change their life for the better,
Here is a pandemic.
Love,
The Universe.
Strava conducted a study that identified January 12 as the day that the highest number of people report deserting their New Year’s resolution. If you’re reading this, you have also made it past, “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day,” a yearly celebration that allows individuals to withdraw from their New Year’s promises guilt-free; it’s kind of like how eating four boxes of chocolate truffles on Valentine’s Day is more socially acceptable (I personally try to keep it to three most days). In any case, if that 30-day squat challenge and over-priced Keto bar is no longer cutting it for you, this annual holiday has got you covered.
On average, 80 percent of all people who make a resolution abandon it at some point during the year. With schools, gyms and recreational spaces closed, this statistic almost seems justified. How are you supposed to get shit done with all these restrictions? Cody Marett has found a way.
The 33-year-old staff sergeant in the U.S Air Force was determined that nothing would come in the way of him and his running routine. When race season was cut short as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he figured the only way he was going to reach new personal bests was if he got creative.
Marett made himself a miniature running course after altering the position of his bed in his South Korean hotel room. Once he established how many laps around the bed equalled a mile (85 to be exact), he started setting small, daily goals for himself.
It began simply; a one-mile run, followed by body-weight exercises, followed by another mile run. “I began looking at running certain distances as a unique challenge,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He moved to 5km, then to 10km, and eventually completed a full marathon. 2,227 laps around the room in four hours, 27 minutes, and 28 seconds.
And Marett isn’t the only one crushing records during this pandemic. Speed eater, Leah Shitkever, set out to break 20 eating records before the end of 2020, some of which included the most marshmallows eaten with no hands in one minute (20), fastest time to eat a chocolate orange (57.14 seconds) and fastest time to drink one litre of gravy (one minute 4.9 seconds). In a Guinness World Records article, she said, “There’s been so much going on and everyone’s been a little disheartened and I wanted to create a light at the end of my own tunnel. It’s an achievement that will create content and entertainment.”
Marett and Shitkever are just two examples of thousands. Are these cases a bit extreme? Absolutely. But the point is not to see if we can swallow a Big Mac whole or can complete 12,502 burpees in 24 hours (which is a real thing), but rather, to get creative with the goals we set for ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to accomplish them. The pandemic has challenged us in many ways, but in 2021, I encourage you to challenge yourself in other ways. Challenge yourself to be inventive; try something different and attempt to improve at it.
If you need a sign to pick up that resolution again, or try something new, even if it’s just for another week, consider this it.
Dear person trying to change their life for the better,
Here is a pandemic.
Love,
The Universe.