New Year’s res­o­lu­tions are a curi­ous thing. Lucky for me, I don’t real­ly need them to aim for more or less in my life. For instance, I don’t have to push myself to exer­cise; it’s such a nat­ur­al part of my dai­ly rou­tine that it’s not even nec­es­sary. But of course, I have goals and desires too. Like run­ning pain-free – after near­ly two years of a nag­ging Achilles ten­don. Or build­ing strength – after tear­ing my bicep ten­don last fall, it’s not just a wish, but a necessity. 

So, my New Year’s res­o­lu­tions are more like com­mit­ments to change. To be more mind­ful in my train­ing. To eat more atten­tive­ly. To mix up my sports rou­tine. And now, with Jan­u­ary almost over, I’m start­ing to see some results. Run­ning feels effort­less on some days. Even after intense spin­ning ses­sions, I bare­ly feel any mus­cle sore­ness. And my Achilles ten­don? It’s calmed down, hard­ly sen­si­tive to pres­sure any­more, and the usu­al pain in the ball of my foot has vanished.

But here’s what real­ly fas­ci­nates me: I have no idea why this is hap­pen­ing. Sure, I know all the changes I’ve made, and they’re not insignif­i­cant. I do mobil­i­ty exer­cis­es every day, try out new sports and train­ing meth­ods, cut down sig­nif­i­cant­ly on refined sug­ar, reg­u­lar­ly use my mas­sage gun, and take con­trast show­ers. But which of these led to the improve­ments? No clue. As I thought about this today, I real­ized some­thing else: I don’t care that I don’t know the exact cause. It’s not impor­tant. None of the changes were made with a spe­cif­ic out­come in mind. Quite the oppo­site. I inte­grat­ed mobil­i­ty exer­cis­es into my rou­tine with such a long-term focus (think­ing about stay­ing mobile and flex­i­ble in old age) that I was­n’t con­cerned about their imme­di­ate effects. The new sports I’m try­ing are out of curios­i­ty and the real­iza­tion that there are so many work­outs out there I haven’t tried yet. I want­ed to see what I’d enjoy, which ses­sions would leave me sweaty but hap­py, and which ones would be a let­down. The sug­ar reduc­tion was­n’t aimed at spe­cif­ic ail­ments, but more about sta­bi­liz­ing my ener­gy intake in gen­er­al. And the con­trast show­ers? More of a chal­lenge, maybe a thought to boost my immune sys­tem – even if that’s sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly shaky, I know.

So, I did­n’t real­ly have a sol­id plan for the new year. Just ideas, wish­es, and goals. And maybe that’s the secret to why I’m see­ing changes so quick­ly and, hope­ful­ly, sus­tain­ably. I did­n’t over­think it. I did every­thing at a pace and time that felt right. Not by a recipe, not by pre­scrip­tion, not by sup­posed sci­en­tif­ic text­books. I lis­tened to my body – and it seems to be thank­ing me. Looks like we’re a pret­ty good team, the two of us.