I’ve learned to be less ambitious.

Over the years, I’ve tried to establish certain good habits, but have not been able to sustain them.

Exercising every day, for example. I’d vow to work out with a kettlebell, do yoga, and run each day for the rest of my life.

But suddenly, months have gone by and my kettlebell sits in the corner, lonely and covered with dust. I don’t know where my yoga mat is. Maybe it’s with my running shoes somewhere in the bottom of my closet.

So I’ve learned to be less ambitious. Instead of the rest of my life, I try for one month.

Each month, I make a simple chart with letters representing Sunday through Saturday. Similar to this:

Exercise:
SMTWTFS SMTWTFS SMTWTFS SMTWTFS SM

Each day that I exercise, I replace that day’s letter with a period. If I don’t exercise, I replace the letter with an x.

At the end of a month, my chart might look like this:

……. .x.x… xx….. ..x…. ..

And at the end of the month, I’m done. The kettlebell can go back into the corner and my yoga mat and my running shoes can settle back into the closet. Or I can decide to try for another month.

After all, I can do anything for a month. A friend taught me that back in the 1980s.

Back then, my friend and I made an agreement. We decided that for 30 days we would have an unfailing good attitude. Not a bland positive outlook, but a cheerful, thankful-for-everything, enthusiastic, unflappable good attitude.

For four solid weeks, we intended to be the two most cheerful guys on earth. We would play Pollyanna’s “happy game” to the hilt.

The reason for this pact was we were about to ship out to a month-long commando school. We were soldiers, which had its challenges, but where we were going, every day would be a living hell.

The course was designed to teach us advanced combat skills, but in the process, the instructors would totally exhaust us, breaking us down physically and emotionally so that soon we would be functioning on nothing but grit.

For a month we would be tired, dirty, and miserable. So my friend and I agreed that the worse things got, the happier we would be. And if we couldn’t actually be happy, then by golly, we would pretend to be.

A certain number of soldiers dropped out or failed the course. Of those that stuck with it and made it through, my friend and I were the only ones who smiled all the way. The worse things got, the more we laughed and thanked the instructors for improving our minds and bodies.

At first, the instructors gave us special attention, trying to kill our stupid cheerfulness, but after a while, they gave up and ignored us.

That experience taught me that I can do anything for 30 days. Get up early. Exercise. Eat more vegetables. Read. Smile. Anything.