Pushups used to be something I avoided.

I’m a big guy, so supporting my upper body does not come without strain and the nagging feeling of impending death. When I started doing yoga and noticed how difficult certain positions for me, I started changing my workout to compensate.

On the chest press, I started focusing less on reps and more on emulating the positions that were causing me to strain. This morning when I did a quick home workout, I was encouraged by how easily my pushups were knocked out.

Progress.

Something similar happened when I went from dreading my monthly financials review (which I nearly outsourced) to realizing that the task was easy if I did a bit of it daily as needed instead of relegating the whole thing to the last day of every month.

The lesson for me is that the undesirable can become trivial with enough practice. Lean into the pain, I guess you’d say.