tomorrow is the first day of the next 100 days of your life

I’m so stoked that so many wonderful people have announced that they’re joining me for my 100 Days Body Practice Experiment starting tomorrow, I cannot even tell you.  This is going to be a good time, y’all.

Before we begin, I wanted to clarify something for those who might’ve wondered, as one reader who emailed me did, about what may appear to some of you to be an inconsistency in policy around these parts:

In the post where you first proposed the 100 days, rule 4 talks about doing a particular thing for 100 days. This seems to conflict, at least in letter, with the various repeats of ‘do what you want when you want as long as it’s every other day’ in the 10-no-11 reasons to do it. 

On the one hand, in the experimental concept, it surely does make more sense to pick one thing and stick with it. Consistency is better for data gathering, among other things. On the other hand, being able to change things around is certainly a way to keep going when you’re faced with “I don’t wanna DO that anymore!” tho I expect that, again for the ‘experiment’ meme, it would make more sense to do something like what you were doing.

Here’s my take:

If you feel like you can do one particular form of body practice throughout the 100 Days, and you wish to do that one specific form of body practice throughout the 100 Days, that’s awesome.

This is certainly an experiment that can be about answering the question “what happens if I add Activity X to my life for a period of 100 days?”

If you don’t feel like you can do one particular form of body practice throughout the 100 Days, or you do not wish to do only one specific form of body practice throughout the 100 Days, then that also works.

This is certainly an experiment that can be about answering the question “what happens if I add some new form of activity, whether it stays the same or changes, to my life for a period of 100 Days?”

The truth is, not everyone is going to be able to sustain a single activity over the course of 100 days.  Some people have physical or medical issues that preclude their doing so.  Other people know themselves well enough to know that they need a lot of variety because moving their bodies the same way too many days running starts to feel too much like punishment.  Or maybe, like me, a person simply has two or more types of activity they’d like to add to their lives as part of the same 100 Days framework.

All these things are possible and all these things can be part of the 100 Days framework.  This is really very much a roll-your-own sort of event.  There are no judges and no stopwatches, no referees or umpires with big shrieking whistles.  Part of the point of the 100 Days is that for 100 days, you get to add new stuff — whether one thing or several — to your body practice and you get to be the boss of how that happens.

The key parts are “adding new stuff to your body practice” and “for 100 days” and “you get to be the boss of how that happens.”

Also?  All of this is on the honor system and neither I nor anyone else will ever know if you not only decide to shift from a half an hour of yoga as your new body practice to a half an hour of swimming, but if you miss four days in the middle because your new lover comes to town and you can’t pry yourselves out of bed.  

Nor will I know if you decide to turn it into a full-bore empirical fiesta of data-gathering and you fill three lab notebooks with measurements and observations.

Nor, indeed, do I care.  These things are totally up to you!  You’re a grownup… why shouldn’t they be?  Ultimately I want this to be about what rocks your world, in terms of body practice.  You’re the expert on what that is, not me.

Join me.  Spend 100 days adding something — or somethings plural — to your body practice.  On your own terms.  By your own lights.  For your own reasons.