Routine Streaks – My “Aha” Moment on Routines and Healthy Habits
Every life coach, business guru, and thought leader will tell you the same thing about personal growth and development. It all starts with developing routines and healthy habits. On the surface, advice on establishing routines and habits is trite.
I get it. How many “listicles” can one read on the subject. Top 10 this, 5 secrets to that, etcetera, etcetera.
Truth is however, no matter how trite it sounds, routines and healthy habits are critical for personal growth. In addition, there is no proven formula that will work just for you. Different techniques work for different people. If you are serious about your personal growth, you just have to keep trying different techniques until you find a technique that works for you.
Personally, I’ve had laser-like focus establishing a game winning routine for my life for the last 3 months. What’s more, since 2009 I’ve consistently researched the subject of habits and routines and experienced numerous peaks and valleys along the way.
My first “aha” moment in learning was in 2014 when I asked myself, what if a habit is not an addiction? I found that if a habit is not an addiction you still need will power, discipline and self-control to do it again the next time. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve done it for 66 days in a row, as some research suggest.
Routine Streaks – My New Secret to Creating Healthy Habits
My second “aha” moment came this morning as I was discussing my running streak with my wife. Today, I ended my current streak. Not my streak of running everyday, which I still can maintain if I push myself before midnight tonight (which is not looking good). The streak I ended was my streak of running at 5 am consecutively. I was up to 18 days in a row of 5 am runs of at lest 3.1 miles.
As I was discussing my disappointment of ending this streak with my wife, she said “You know tracking streaks is a thing for men.” Now, I can’t confirm or deny if tracking routine streaks is just a man thing or not, but what I do know is that routine streaks are popular. I never paid attention to it much until I joined a large running group on Facebook. In this group, people post about ending and restarting their running streaks all the time.
My wife’s comment, coupled with my observations from this running group generated this “aha” moment. I have the most success with creating daily routines and healthy habits when I keep track my consecutive days of success. For example, today is my 87th day in a row publishing in this blog. Before this streak my personal best was 73 days, and before that 45 days. One of the reasons I am able to continue day after day is my desire to extend my streak.
Routine Streaks Create Never Ending Goals
Each time my streak ends, I have a new goal to beat when I restart. This is a motivator for me. Furthermore, I am less likely to beat myself up when my streaks ends. I can see the forest from the trees. When one streak ends, it just means I have the opportunity to beat a new record.
Right now I’m tracking three streaks in my daily routine. With today’s “aha” moment I’m going to start tracking 2 or 3 more I can think of right now. Every routine I want to turn into healthy habit will get put into a list, and get a tick mark daily.
Are you willing to try this out to help you with your personal growth? Please let me know what you think by contacting me here.