18 - Keeping track of the things
Get your streak on
Earlier this year, I made the decision to practice yoga more regularly. To this end I started a #yogasunday ritual where I repeat the same 45 minute yoga practice every Sunday. At the end of my practice, I “reward” myself with a little red sticker on my calendar and so far, although my feet still do not touch the ground in downward dog, there’s been only one missing red sticker. Seeing my streak of red stickers makes me super proud of myself for showing up and it also gives me hope that one day, when I have more red stickers, my forehead might actually touch the ground in seated forward fold.
The concept of using a streak to help maintain motivation is one that is employed by many of the worlds largest brands and with good reason. The human brain desires rewards, and these rewards are accepted by our brains and serve the same purpose, regardless of what form they take. That little notification when you close your rings for the day is a reward. The reward makes you feel accomplished. The feeling of accomplishment spurs you on to do the same thing the following day, and so on. And when you see a full week of closed rings, you’re more likely to want to keep it that way. And so a habit is born.
Starting and maintaining a streak employs multiple principles of habit change. The act of tracking serves as a visual cue and instantly makes the habit obvious, whether you use a calendar taped to your fridge or an app on your phone. Carrying out your new habit consistently is your way of casting votes for your new identity and watching that streak grow is it’s own little reward. The other important thing about tracking is that when you’re tracking the right things, it helps you stay focused on the process instead of the goal. So instead of focusing on my desire to possess the ability to drop into a full split when I hear split in de middle, I am now someone who shows up regularly to her solo yoga practice. (in the hopes that one day her hips will open just enough to make a split possible, amen)
I know some people might read this and think “well, this is both unnecessary and tedious”, but the truth is that as humans, we tend to overestimate our actions. You might consider yourself someone who only eats one meal a day but when you actually put down every single morsel that passes through your lips in a day, the results might shock you. So tracking is indeed necessary sometimes and very useful too.
Thanks to technology, tracking doesn’t have to be tedious. Lots of apps exist to help you track everything from the number of steps you take in a day to how much water you’re drinking. I listed a bunch of apps I use to track my many habits in this earlier post on bringing consciousness to the things. I recently discovered another one called Habit - Daily tracker which allows you to track multiple habits at once.
If you’re like me and you’d rather reward yourself with a red sticker or gold star, then you should try to record your habit immediately after it occurs (habit stacking). This is because our memories also do not work the way we assume that they do and we forget things much easier than we realise.
Even with the best intentions, it is not always possible to maintain a streak. Life gets in the way sometimes and that’s okay too. When I was in Lagos a few months ago, factors like enjoyment and slow internet definitely messed with my routines and it was a bit of a scramble to get back on track when I returned. But it wasn’t impossible because knowing I had done it before, I knew I could do it again.
In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear advices that you “Don’t miss twice”, which means that when life happens and you break your streak, you get back on as soon as possible i.e the next day. I can’t fully agree with this one because my holidays tend to last longer than a day okay, and there are just things I can not be bothered about when I am in holiday mode and that is okay too.
One thing I sometimes struggle with, when it comes to maintaining my many habit streaks is half assing. When you’re laser focused on maintaining your streak, it can be tempting to half ass whatever the task is, just so you can tick that box for the day. I used to think of this as a bad thing but after reading Atomic Habits, I’ve started to see this a bit more differently. The “bad” days are sometimes more important than the good days. The days when I’ve had to push myself to do three sets of twenty instead of my usual five, feel just as rewarding, if not more so because I had to make more effort. Such days also reinforce my chosen identity as well as prevent the extra soreness that comes with missing too many workouts.
The important thing in all of this is how you feel. As great as streaks are, it is important not to get bogged down by the pressure to maintain a streak as this can be detrimental in the long run. It is possible to stay focused on the process while taking some days off.
There are many metrics of progress that can not be measured and those should not be ignored either. Breaking your Bible app streak does not mean a break your spiritual relationship, and not closing all your rings doesn’t make you a lazy person.
Tracking your habits may not be for everyone or every habit, but it can be a very helpful way of maintaining motivation as well as giving yourself a well deserved pat on the back for sticking with the things.
This week I read
Notes on grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it may have inspired me to write
This week I wrote
In Memory. When Peter died, a part of me didn’t feel entitled to mourn him as loudly because I had only known him for a few years. But his life/death changed mine.
I am still enjoying my funemployment. House hunting is not going as well as I had hoped so I need your thoughts and prayers.
Here’s wishing you a week full of reminders that you are deserving of everything good.
Chioma.