By: Cynthia Adams | Photos By: Nancy Evelyn

Fei Zhao is a UGA doctoral student in toxicology. He was a finalist in the 2012 Three Minute Thesis (3MT™) Competition, and was selected for the 2013 Emerging Leaders Conference. He is a serious scholar, with a serious to-do list.

When you decided to tackle doing a pull-up, what was the inspiration?

Last year, I became unsatisfied with myself. Everything remained the same: I played the same sports I am good at; I spent my holiday in the same way: working or staying at home; I hang out with the same people I feel comfortable with. I was reaching 30. At 30 when many life challenges arise, I am supposed to be a real man, capable and confident.

How do I possess the confidence to confront any challenges if I never try something new and difficult? How do I understand others and enjoy the colorful world if I do not learn and try to do new things others are passionate about? I want to prove to myself that I am capable of handling challenges and I want to build up my confidence by achieving new and challenging tasks. So I decided to do something beyond my previous life pattern. I made a list of new things to do before 30; one of them is to do 10 pull-ups.

You write that this effort required two months—and how proud you are. What did this teach you? What should others learn from your devotion to an ideal?

You cannot imagine how proud I was at the moment of giving the first pull-up. I see it as the proudest achievement in my life. It is really a big deal for anyone who could not make a single pull-up during his previous 27 years.

Currently, I have achieved the goal of doing 10 pull-ups. I learned the best lesson: No matter how bad you are at something and how diffi dent you are at the beginning, you will eventually achieve the goal by making efforts continuously, being persistent with a clear vision. My mentor, Dr. Xiaoqin Ye, also told me a similar story. Her goal was to become a professor. She had to work for more than seven and a half years as a postdoc before being an independent professor at UGA. She said there were frustrations and depression, but she never gave up her goal.

So, do not be intimidated by the time and efforts it will take to realize your dream in career, relationship and self-improvement. Everything must be achieved by hard work; and these achievements are most appreciated.