“Why not just drink 100 ounces of water instead?”

Any rational human being, when given the choice between making themself engage in regular physical exercise or simply drinking 100 ounces of water every day, would pick the water—ten times out of ten. Right? I’m not just lazy, this has got to be a real fact.

Okay, so, maybe I’m lazy, that’s fair.

Last week my boyfriend invited me to join him on the “drink 100 ounces of water every day” challenge. I agreed immediately because anything sounded better than going to the gym. Not that drinking water is a substitute for working out, of course, but it is a step in feeling like I’m doing something intentionally healthy with my life, so I went with it.

Because life’s all about feelings, right?

Anyway, we agreed to start the very next day. I was not particularly concerned—I’m not one of those people who drink 17 cans of Coke before lunchtime. I love water. It’ll be easy! Plus, 100 ounces of water is just like drinking five 20-ounce cups of coffee. We’ve all been there before, am I right? Easy peasy.

Right, so, not surprisingly, I vastly underestimated my ability to gradually consume 100 ounces of water over the natural course of my day and ended up drinking 32 ounces at 2 o’clock in the morning just to meet my goal. I got a weird over-hydration headache, my stomach hurt, and I woke up with a very unhappy bladder. However! I met my goal.

And I’ve continued to meet it every day since then! I’m currently on day 10 of ingesting 100 ounces of water a day, and I can honestly say I’ve never felt more hydrated. Due to the fact that I didn’t research any potential outcomes of accomplishing such a feat, I’m not sure what to look for in other side effects: Clear skin? Weight loss? True and complete happiness accompanied by utter satisfaction with life? That’s a stretch.

However, there is one result that I cannot deny, and that’s the sense of accomplishment and confidence associated with meeting a goal (even a small one) every single day.

That feeling—knowing that I’m capable of consistency—is utterly empowering. Before writing and posting something every day this month, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything every single day for longer than a week (other than sleeping and generating carbon dioxide). However, I’ve now written something every day for 21 days, and I’ve consumed 100 ounces of water every day for 10 days.

The point is, I guess, that small victories build on each other. When you believe that you can’t create consistently, it’s because you’ve never created consistently and you have no reason to believe otherwise. So start somewhere small (even if it’s not your main goal) and do it every single day to prove to yourself that you can do it. Get the momentum going. Then, once those mini-victories are compounding, you can add in the bigger things that you’ve never been able to get off the ground before.

If you struggle with being self-disciplined enough to actually stick to any one thing (like me, my entire life), reach out to someone who can help keep you accountable. At first I thought that was a total cop-out (doesn’t it defeat the purpose of being self–disciplined if you have to rely on other people for help?), but I now see the value in having others around to help motivate you towards consistency.

Once you start hitting those daily mini-goals, though, and getting that rush of excitement and accomplishment at the fact that you dang did the thing again, you’ll be feeling so confident and capable that you won’t have to rely on others as much for that external motivation.

At least. . . that’s what I’m hoping for once we hit the end of this month. Check back in April and we’ll see how confident I’m feeling then.