On December 28, 2021, I decided on a whim to row 2,183 miles on my rowing machine over the entirety of 2022.

3,513,198 meters.

All this from a guy who grew up hating physical exercise as a kid.

That slowly started to change in college.

I became friends and roommates with a guy who was stupid fit.

Like, would-challenge-himself-to-do-100-handstand-pushups-because-it-was-fun-to-him fit.

I told myself I was happy, but I wasn’t. And being friends with this guy, plus making friends with another kid who turned out to be a cousin, things changed. I made the decision to commit to fitness.

And I did.

It lasted until about the second year of my first professional position as a knowledge worker, about four years total.

I crashed hard.

My boss started handing me more and more work, and I just took it. I stopped running, I stopped doing Insanity workouts. I switched to Netflix and video games to relax.

That became my reality for a few years.

In the summer of 2021, I had this sudden desire to go for a walk. I don’t remember exactly why, but I did. So I put on my running shoes, which had sat gathering dust, and went for a walk.

And then I did it again the next day.

Before I knew it, I was going every single day. And while I was walking, I was listening to Rob Dial, then Eddie Pinero, then some vegan podcasts, and more. And then I was faced with the coming winter.

I decided I needed something do over the winter and I picked up on rowing. I did some research, found a machine, and got started in October 2021.

Not even a couple of months later, I had this crazy idea.

I’d row the full length of the Great Wall of China virtual challenge from The Conqueror Challenges.

All 2,183 miles. All 3.5 million+ meters.

And I set to it. 10,000 meters a day. Every day.

It. Sucked.

But I committed and showed up every day.

Some days it went well, other days it was torture.

I missed very few days unintentionally.

The longest distance I rowed in a single day was 25,000 meters. At my pace, that’s the length of a Lord of the Rings movie, if you’re curious.

The shortest distance was 2,000 meters, that was when I was just starting.

But I stuck with it.

Then, one day in October 2022, a year after I started rowing, 9 months after I started rowing every single day, I thought my forearm looked different.

After looking at it I realized, I have new muscle.

And it just continued to show up.

Suddenly it was my legs.

Then my biceps and triceps.

Then my chest.

I was genuinely floored.

Then I realized that I was less exhausted during my workouts.

I was able to go longer distances, more often than not, without taking a break.

Towards the end of my year-long challenge, there were several days where I rowed the full 10,000 meters without a single rest period.

My body had changed. It had improved and gotten better and stronger.

I was going longer distances and feeling less exhausted and more energized by the end of the sessions.

So, what happened?

Internal change can be difficult.

In December 2021, I had this vision in my head that I would be stupid fit by the end of my challenge.

Ripped. Clearly defined muscles. Not an ounce of fat. Never out of breath.

None of those things happened.

This past year, 2022, taught me more valuable lessons than getting a prime physical physique would have ever done.

Three keys to true internal change are consistency, trust, and letting go.

1. Show up consistently.

Showing up consistently is the only way you’re going to make true progress because change doesn’t happen overnight.

When you show up consistently, the effects of your actions/decisions/etc. compound.

Showing up every day for rowing allowed me to build more muscle that led to more stamina and therefore less breaks.

Showing up every day to post on Twitter builds consistency and people are more likely to engage and follow. It also builds your data points and creates opportunities for better content.

Showing up consistently is one of the core building blocks of internal change.

It’s habit building which leads to muscle memory which leads to that thing being less of a change and more of a part of you.

2. Trust in the process.

If you want to start a business, chances are someone else has already done it.

If you want to lose weight and become physically fit, chances are someone else has already done it.

For almost anything you want to do, it’s likely someone else has already done it and is a few steps ahead of you.

Look for those people you want to emulate, study them, and follow the steps they took.

You won’t end up in exactly the same location.

Publishing a newsletter every week will get easier because I’m following a basic process that was laid out by someone who is already doing it.

As I follow in their steps, I make tweaks here and there and, eventually, develop my own process.

But I trust in the process of someone who is already successful at what I want to do.

3. Letting go of the results.

The most difficult part of change is letting go of the results.

The reality with change is that we want to control every single aspect of it.

In doing so, we tend to lose control of the end result the more we try to control it.

The reality is, no matter who you are following, no matter who you are looking up to, they’re not you.

And because they’re not you, your results will never be the same.

So, you build a picture of what you want your destination to look like, and you strike out towards it.

Then you enjoy the walk.

You trust the universe or God or whatever you believe in, that it will take you to where you are meant to be.

Internal Change is not easy.

It can take years to truly get comfortable with the idea that you can’t control this process nearly as much as you think.

But it should be worth noting that the goal is not to build this perfect picture of you and then work until you achieve it.

The goal of change, internal or external, is to enjoy the journey there.

Too many people, myself included at one time, build this picture that is so grandiose and beautiful that they become defeated just thinking about it.

So they give up.

And they succumb to the pressures of society around them to just go to school, get a degree, get a job, work until they’re old enough to retire, and then “enjoy” life.

Give yourself more credit than that.

I did, and I finished rowing all 3,513,198 meters on December 27, 2022.

With love and a sense of urgency.

Jeff