This past Tuesday I hit a new personal milestone.

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Part of my 2014 project is to build an exercise routine. This means trying to find a simple, DIY, home-made workout routine.

As part of my routine, I’ve been trying to learn to jump rope like a pro. When I tried for the first time last summer, I could barely jump 10 times in a row. By the end of last summer I was able to jump 50 times in a row. Imagine that! That was a “win” in my books. Then winter came along, and I went into hibernation mode.

This summer I tried to pick up the workout again and started with the sets of 25 jumps. 2 weeks later I was back doing sets of 50. I kept practicing and 2 weeks after that, I did my first set of 100 jumps. It’s been a month now with this new workout, and this Tuesday, for the first time ever, I tested my endurance to see how many jumps I could do in a row. I counted past 100, then 150, then 200, and then all the way to the BIG 300! 300 jumps in a row! In the words of the mini-game voice from Mario Party, “NEW RECORD!”

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The lesson is simple. Last summer I quit a couple weeks in because I felt I wasn’t improving fast enough. But this was definitely the wrong approach. What made the difference, was slowly building momentum; getting better week after week.

Needless to say I’m very proud of my progress and am excited to continue to practice, and steadily, learn to jump rope like a pro.