Success takes repetition. When I was 10 years old, I started to learn how to play the trumpet. Music has always been close to me because my dad, also my hero and idol, is a musician. I remember the very first day when my dad bought me my first trumpet. We were in our small apartment in the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood of Seattle. I took the trumpet out of the case. Put the mouthpiece in, put my lips on the mouthpiece, and blew as hard as I could. Out came a horrible sound that was not distinguishable by the 12 tone Western Music Scale.

My poor family had to endure many days, weeks, months and years of me practicing over and over and over again. A lot of those early years were difficult to put up with for anyone listening. But eventually I started to get good at playing the trumpet and by my sophomore year of high school I got the Lead Trumpet chair in arguably the best High school Jazz Band in the whole United States. How did that happen? How did I go from horrible, to really good? Repetition.

Every day at school I would play, then when I got home I would play, and on the weekends I would play, and every chance I got I would play. That’s how I got good.

That’s how we get good at anything. When making a lifestyle change, it takes repetition. Primarily with your workouts and healthy eating. You must put it on repeat. It must happen daily. For how long? For as long as it takes for it to become a habit. By habit I mean the point when it is not a decision anymore, it is something you HAVE to do without debating it. For some people it takes days, for others weeks, months or years.

Keep in mind that this lifestyle transformation will require lots of repetition. Days, weeks, months or years in some cases. Do you want to reach your goals bad enough to put in the work?