I’m pretty good at double-unders (if you don’t recognize that term, it’s where you jump rope, and each time you jump, the rope goes under your body twice). But I wasn’t good when I started.
The first time I even heard of them was in a workout with my friend where he suggested I do fifty of them. I took about 15 minutes and got… zero. But I kept trying now and again. And then I watched some old YouTube videos. And then I got my first one. And then one day, I decided that I was going to get them figured out. My approach was this: I would do 30 double-unders every day. It didn’t matter if they were strung together. It didn’t matter if they looked nice. It didn’t matter how many times I stopped or missed attempts. The first day I tried that, it took me nearly 10 minutes to pull it off. And once I got my 30, I stopped and moved on.
The next day, I tried again: 30 reps, then move on. I kept at it like this, day in and day out, for months. By the end of the year, I could easily do 30 in a row in about 20 seconds. I was relentless in my consistency, but I only ever did a few minutes a day.
This strategy worked really well for me, so when I upgraded my compound bow about 12 years ago, I thought I’d try the same thing with archery: I’d shoot 10 arrows each day. And I stuck with that too, with the same kind of consistency. I still do it: 3-12 arrows each day. And you know what? I’m pretty good at archery too.
Now this post isn’t about me patting myself on the back for my successes (a post about my failures would be way too long!), it’s because I want to make this point: when you’re trying to get good at something, to make something part of your life, to build a habit, the most important thing is to get good at is showing up.
If you keep showing up, you will get better. You can’t help it.
Learn the ins and outs, for sure. Ask for help, get coaching, get feedback, for sure. But nobody becomes great at anything without putting in the reps. Your first reps will be bad. That’s fine. No expert started as an expert. You will get better. But none of the work of getting better is possible if you don’t show up. You have to show up to accomplish anything.
And this is why, when we coach people, we so often encourage them to start with something that takes less than 5 minutes.
You want to get stronger? Accumulate 10 pull-ups each time you come to the gym (or 5 negatives, or 15 ring rows).
You want better push-up stamina? Accumulate 20 push-ups each time you come to the gym.
You want stronger squats? Do a set of 10 at half your max weight. Do it each time you come to the gym.
Start small. Less than 5 minutes. But do it all the time.
Starting small is important because it removes a lot of the friction points. It takes time and energy and focus and scheduling to work in a 60-minute session four days per week. It’s hard. Which means a lot of people don’t do it. But something that takes 5 minutes? That probably won’t change the course of your day’s logistics at all. You probably won’t have to psyche yourself up for it. You probably won’t need to adjust your budget. Start small.
This works with fitness. It works with skills. It works with studying languages, or getting good at writing, or learning the guitar, or painting. It can be overwhelming to look at the distance between being brand new and being good. But just start showing up. No more than 5 minutes at a time. And then just keep on doing it. Worry about optimizing it later.
Right now, just show up.
Because the results over time are like honest-to-goodness magic.