Key points
- Streaks involve keeping a daily habit or touchpoint of communication alive for a substantial amount of time.
- A streak creates bite-sized objectives rather than an indefinite to-do.
- If a streak is broken, we can gather information and use it to understand how to move forward.
When you were born probably affects what you think of when you read the word “streak.” I am not referring to running naked across a football field or new highlights in your hair. Streaks today are more aligned with keeping a daily habit or touchpoint of communication alive for a substantial amount of time. Which I guess supports the millennial definition of winning streaks or fitness goals
Gen Z and Gen Alpha have rekindled the term and moved it beyond Snapstreaks. For those of you who don’t know what this means (I, too, was recently educated), it is using the social media app Snapchat and snapping, or sending, a photo to a friend every day without fail. But what interests me isn’t Snapchat. It’s what happens psychologically when we start keeping track of our own consistency and create goals that give us structure. I am intrigued and impressed with how my younger clients have expanded on this trend and are now using the term “streak” to motivate themselves in ways that support their well-being.
A Streak Gives Your Brain Evidence That You Can Show Up for Yourself
Keeping a streak, and the consistency and reps that this involves, gives your brain evidence that you can keep showing up for yourself. It’s about supporting the fact that you have already subscribed to that truth and want to continue to strengthen it. Anxious thought patterns thrive on fear-based thinking that is focused on futuristic what-ifs, or on rehashing and ruminating about the past. The brain is either trying to fill the gaps and make sense of something that has already happened or reach a sense of closure, or it is over-preparing us for the future. This can be overwhelming and pull us away from living in the present.
Maintaining a streak can defuse some of that overwhelm and calm the thoughts around, “How long am I going to be able to keep this up?” The focus becomes today, not some indefinite point in the future. The thought process changes to, “When am I going to get my rep in today and keep my streak going?” A streak creates bite-sized objectives rather than an indefinite to-do
When we create something too big, too rigid, or too final, a part of us generally surfaces and convinces us otherwise. It’s just too much, and we should probably bail out now to protect ourselves from feeling the failure later. To <a href="https://healthylife7.com/build-lower/” title=”Build Lower”>build a habit, we must identify, acknowledge, and work with all of our conflicting parts to create internal safety and keep the momentum going. In the past, I have referred to this as the gray zone: challenging our tendency to operate in black and white and adopting a mindset that meets our conflicting parts in the middle, almost as if we were our own mediator. Hence, the gray zone.
Reframe the Goal: Consistency, Not Daily Achievement
Consistency is a difficult endeavor for us humans. When we strive for consistency, we are playing fair with ourselves. We are creating the opportunity to self-assess, see what works for where we are and what we can realistically do, while also pushing back and emphasizing to the part of us that might want to bail altogether because we’re having a tough or busy day that we can still show up and that we are worth the effort
Why Streaks Keep Us Grounded
Life is unpredictable. When we have certain elements embedded into our routines and lifestyles that create some predictability and encourage self-connection, we are more equipped to meet and healthfully navigate the unknowns
Keeping ourselves in the equation strengthens our connection to ourselves, creating something that is harder to break. A streak serves as a touchpoint, an action or mindset that brings us back to ourselves and confirms that this part of our day, this effort, has some predictability. That predictability can serve as another tool to help manage anxious thoughts and gaps in self-trust
How to Create a Streak
What is something you value? Something you know helps you connect, keeps you healthy, or makes you feel more like yourself?
Start there, and don’t be afraid to start small. Think of this as your warm-up. Begin, and then notice how you adjust and what parts of you are resistant. This is important data because these are the parts that are going to need a bit more convincing, and the only way to do this is through consistency and reps
Consistency demonstrates to these resistant, protective parts of you that you can recover and that you are not in danger. When something new is introduced, resistant parts are supposed to surface in order to question and protect. But as we know, most of the time these parts come in too strong and become overprotective. This is where self-soothing comes in. The practice of fact-checking can also keep you from abandoning your streak when those protective parts start making their case. Pull from your history, your data, and challenge the negative all-or-nothing thoughts that lack trust in your ability to recover, persevere, and navigate new challenges.
Habit Formation Essential Reads
Why Behaviour Change Is So Hard to Do
How to Find a Well-Being Habit You’ll Actually Stick With
When to Celebrate
Notice and affirm your efforts daily. Don’t skip this step; this is what makes it fun. It might be small, but essentially, it’s like giving yourself a high five and strengthening your relationship with yourself. Acknowledge that some days your rep came more easily than others. This is normal and part of why keeping a streak is challenging yet satisfying
What Happens if a Streak Is Broken?
Simply put, you start over
Learn from the break and regroup. The purpose of a streak is not to never break it but to practice coming back to yourself when you do. There is a lot of information you can gather from the break and use to understand what got in the way and how to move forward. And moving forward is not negotiable
Tweak the streak based on the chapter of life you are in. We do not maintain the same roles, setups, responsibilities, and energy levels throughout our entire lives. What worked six months ago may not work today. Find the gray zone. Keep yourself accountable, keep striving, and keep fighting to keep yourself in the equation. Furthermore, understand that reassessing and changing things up might just be the very thing that keeps you consistent. And ultimately, that is the goal
Maybe the word streak still means different things depending on when you were born. For some, it’s a Snapchat notification. For others, it’s a running record, a fitness goal, or a daily habit. And for some of us, well, it’s still a naked person running across a football field
Whatever your definition, maybe the real value of a streak isn’t how long you can keep it going but learning that you can keep showing up for yourself, even when life gets messy, your motivation disappears, or you miss a day
And if you do miss a day? Start again
Just keep your clothes on
