Challenges via social media have become really popular over the past year or so.  This past December I was challenged by one of my best friends, Anson Bryant, to a 30 day push up challenge.  I accepted the challenge and began my journey.

Pushups, in general, are not extremely challenging for me, but I do not incorporate calisthenics into my workouts the way that I used to.  Years ago, I always started my upper body or chest workouts with pushups as a warm up.  This challenge was a way for me to incorporate this back into my workouts.

Here is what I found out a few days into the challenge….

It forced me to become more creative.  Since I was posting the challenge on social media, namely Facebook and Instagram, I wanted to include different variations of pushups instead of people watching me do the same old pushups day in and day out. In my quest  for variety, I ended up making the pushups a lot more challenging, which in turn encouraged me and I could feel myself getting stronger.

Another result of this challenge was that I learned a lot about camera angles and lighting. I am not a selfie or camera aficionado, so at times 30 pushups would easily turn into 60 or 90 as I would have to do the recordings over again due to the bad angles.

Thirdly, I received a lot of support and encouragement. People would send messages to me saying “keep pushing”,  or “looking good”, which would motivate me even more to continue to be creative and look forward to the next day in the challenge.

The final and most important thing that I learned was that I was inspiring others.  People would send messages to me saying that they were inspired by my challenge and how they have started eating healthier, working out, and even how they are starting their own challenges.  I now see those people on social media crushing their challenges, and  I become even more inspired and encouraged as I cheer them on.

Comment below if are thinking about starting a challenge or have completed challenges in the past.