11 Things I've learned from doing 30 000 pullups in 1000 days

The challenge started by an accident in 1. January 2017 when I had to write down something I will do this year. I didn't have time to think. Out of the blue, I wrote that this year I will do 10k pullups.

First, it was just a joke, I wasn't even considering actually doing it because it felt too big of a number, but after a slight social pressure, I realized it's not that of a big task if measured daily. It only takes 30 pullups per day to make 10k in one year.

After actually making it to 10k I realized I don't even want to stop because there were quite a few learnings and I found it to be really beneficial. In fact, making 30 pullups per day have changed my life. Here is how ->

The rule (that made it easier) of the challenge is that if you skip one day, you can do it back another day, or if you want, in 30 days… what counts is that you will do it after all.

I have utilized the same system to pushups (started 300 days ago) and to leg exercises (started 225 days ago) as well and will cover why the process is actually good for improving yourself.

Here is what I came to realize and what I've learned + few facts.
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1. Even though I can now do 40 pullups in a row in ideal conditions, I find doing 10 pullups is still quite hard. I think of it as the Law of Basics. This is the basic level that is attainable to everyone in the world & and from where you can start building up to the next level. Even though it's doable to basically everyone, it still requires effort & energy even to those who are on completely different levels.

2. Sometimes we do something for years in one way and then realize that we could have done it much better. I have found this to be true in a lot of areas of life. Same with this pull-up challenge — if I would have approached it consciously from a completely different, more systematic angle, say, every time I start doing pullups, first set I will give my all and do as much as I can — this would have improved my overall strength and perhaps I could do more.
I think of it as making tweaks — I have found we can improve literally anything we do if we ask the right question at the right time — how can I improve (whatever I am doing right now) by 1%?

3. 1 year is a long fucken commitment. Even 1 month is. Most of the people who tend to promise they will do something for 1 year are destined to fail, very likely already in the first few weeks or a month. Achieving something long term is possible through cutting the elephant into small chunks. Say you want to quit coffee for a month — just try 3 days first. Then, once you feel good about yourself, go for another 4. Then, realizing you can do it for 1 week, set a goal for another week & so on.

4. The key to sustainable happiness lies in writing down a goal and going after it, seeing the progress you are making on the way. Buying stuff & experiences is good, but the satisfaction is somewhat on steroids and won't last long. Feeling good comes from seeing you are capable of keeping your promises to yourself.

5. The best way to become fit is to buy yourself a ticket to participate in an Ironman somewhere next year and then just start fucking running every single day and measuring your progress. The idea is to commit to a bigger goal and then slowly, but steadily start chasing it. In the process, we become a different person or identity who is actually capable of achieving something remarkable.

6. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing every day, and more importantly, it's worth implementing into other areas of life as well.
Think about it — is working out worth doing? Is eating healthy worth doing? Is reading books worth doing? Indeed. All are important and will make a contribution to your (best) self. Well, if it's worth doing, then, obviously, it is worth doing every day. If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing at all. Here, think of the opposite of good habits.
That's why I started the same process with pushups and leg exercises as well (I now do 60 leg exercises and 30 pushups + 30 pullups per day).

7. After doing 30k pullups, I can't say that my biceps have gone bigger. Not really… that has never been the goal. And that's the reason why… because simply it's never been the goal… If, however, I had the goal to grow the biceps and consciously pursued it, it would have grown bigger because I've then had chosen to put more weights on, do fewer reps and focus on building biceps via specific pull-up exercises that will grow mainly them. Muscle grows from adding weights. 30k reps haven't grown my biceps much, because I never added weights.

8. Process — the same process can be applied to every single area of life. Examples —
Healthy eating — This year I drink 365x2L of water.
Self-development — reading — This year I will read 3650 pages of books.
Running — This year I will run 365km x 3.
The beauty of the process is you can skip days because simply there will be bad days and days you won't feel like doing anything. That's fine. In fact, you can skip 25+ days as I did with pullups, but you will have to deal with the pressure to get back on track and keep your promise.

9. There are 2 possible outcomes of this process and any kind of goal setting exercise. You will either get better by keeping the promise and actually making it to the end OR you will get fucking worse by disappointing yourself and not being able to keep your word. This will make you feel like you've let yourself down and you will lose your power.

10. Having a plan (in every area of life) makes everything so much easier. People who have a plan have a much higher chance to experience success.
Think of overweight people — what is the likelihood they followed a plan during the time they gained weight?
Think of poor people — chances are they didn't have a plan for saving but spent everything they had like there was no tomorrow.
Think of burned-out business owners who exchanged their health (sleepless nights, poor eating habits) in order to get their biz on top of the game.
Without having a plan or a consistent process, we can still achieve remarkable results, but the probabilities will skyrocket if we actually have written plan for everything we pursue long term.

11. Challenge'ing ourselves is an environment where we can grow. The Challenge to make 10k pullups in 365 days have changed my life in a way that I am actually constantly on the lookout for more new challenges. In fact, I think that our society has become so lazy that without challenging ourselves, we are likely to become even more stagnant. It has to become a part of our everyday life in order to keep moving, improving and learning.
Since 2017, I've done few other Challenges — one of them was 75 hard, where I worked out, drank 4L of water, kept my diet and read 10 pages of books and didn't drink alcohol for 75 consecutive days. Today is one the last day of my 30-day mini 75 hard, where I am doing basically the same, but for a shorter time. 75 Hard will become part of my yearly plan for sure, and from here I will make sure I will start 30-day Challenge every month, to try new things and force myself to keep shit under control. I also force myself to read on a daily basis.

Thanks for reading! :)