The Benefit of One Pushup A Day

 One of the things I am constantly saying is to do just one pushup a day. 

The reason I phrase it this way is that anyone can do just one pushup a day. From a capacity time standpoint, no matter what your day looks like, how busy it got, how many fires you had to put out at work, how tired you are right before bed there is always time and energy to do one pushup. 

The benefit of doing one pushup a day is not physical, although that is a potential by-product. The benefit comes in habit formation. This is known as a tiny habit. Made famous by behavioral psychologist and author BJ Fogg. 

Change comes from small incremental habits or tiny changes done over long periods of time. 

Fogg talks about this concept in his book Tiny Habits. 

He reduces the concept to the simplest basic component when trying to form a new habit. 

He builds a simple formula 

B= Behavorial 

M = Motivation 

A = Ability 

P = Prompt 

If the ability to do something is hard then the motivation must be high (blue dot). Counter to this if the ability easy then the motivation can be low (red dot).  

This is why doing 1 push-up has its benefits. Doing just one push-up only takes a few seconds can be done almost anywhere, and can even be done right before you get into bed at night. The ability to do one push-up is easy therefore the motivation is low. 

This is the key to have tiny habits. The trick is to find low-ability tasks that require minimal motivation. 

Since motivation is not a reliable source for getting things done on a consistent basis you need triggers or prompts to help you engage in these tiny habits.