The downside to counting..

When we were kids, my brother and myself had to go to Hindi class and pass exams to prove our proficiency in Hindi. Why our mom thought that two kids in south India had to go do this outside of their school curriculum was beyond me, but it sure helped later when I ended up studying in Varanasi! I could read, write and speak Hindi comfortably..

One of the lessons that I vaguely remember is "निन्यानबे के चक्कर में" (which crudely translates to "stuck in circles at 99") where a guy loses his peace of mind because he loses 1 of his 100 gold coins and instead of being content with the knowledge he still has 99 coins, he keeps chasing the one lost coin.

The last two weeks reminded me of this story constantly. You see, at the beginning of the year, there was the 60 day challenge for Yoga (60 classes in 60 days) which was done successfully, with a lot of help and encouragement from family and friends. There was a goal to try and keep it going for a longer time.. 100 day challenge? 365 day challenge? Did not want this to be a new year resolution where the drive to keep on going is dead by Valentines day, and for some time it was close to being an 80/80 and then things started falling off.. when San went to China and the MIL went back to Seattle and allergies caught up with me etc. etc. excuses.. excuses!

As is customary in my head.. when your original goal is becoming too distant, a short term goal sometimes helps getting back on track. So told myself.. at least finish 100 classes by end of April! Things were going okay, but the closer it got, there were some unnecessary mental blocks to the point where on day 100, decided to deliberately take a break. 

So here is the nerdyogi's graph for 2013.. will put this up after 240 days and see how it goes. The way things are, might be recreating this chart from PhD comics.. or not?!

Did make it to 100th class this year on day 122 and continuing to go for classes whenever possible. 

Now this has made me think.. As an example, if a cricket player was asked to just keep scoring with no scoreboard in front of him, will he score more without worrying about critical landmarks like 50 runs or 100 runs etc. Would we drive towards a long term goal better if we didn't have to see those in between mile markers all the time? Is there some research on this topic? If you have read any books or have seen research on this topic, do let me know.

Maybe intermediate milestones are more of a block?