How do you get atomic habits? Start Streaking

The second most popular habit book in the world is James Clear’s “Atomic Habits.” In it he details and describes the power that simple small behaviors can have in your life. In chapter 3 he defines habit as, “a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.” This definition is intriguing because who doesn’t want good growth behaviors in their life to become automatic? Who doesn’t want desirable dietary decisions to be something they just do instead of having to think about it? Who doesn’t want increased intelligence to be involuntary? Sign me up! The hard part about the pursuit of the automatic behavior is the necessary repetition to get you there.

Repeating something day after day can get awful boring. Repeating it day after day waiting for the magic day it turns automatic can be discouraging. Repeating it day after day and never having it turn automatic is downright defeating. I felt each one of these emotions, bored, discouraged, and defeated as I worked diligently to have a very important, seriously significant, absolutely necessary behavior become automatic in my life. If I did not do this behavior then I would be without teeth in a short amount of time and I had no desire to overcook my vegetables.

My teeth have always attracted a lot of bacteria, more than most. This bacterium builds up and starts eating away bone and gum. You know the bacteria is there by the presence of plaque or tartar. Every time I visited the dentist they would pull out the mining equipment and begin jackhammering the plaque off my teeth. After an hour of painful work they would pronounce my teeth clean and then say, “Jeff, you need to brush and floss every day if you want to keep your teeth.” I would proudly proclaim, “this time I will!”

Brushing was never a problem for me. In fact, if you haven’t read Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” I recommend you do to learn how the whole toothpaste industry made brushing your teeth a national habit. For me the problem was in flossing. I HATED flossing, and yes, I capitalized HATE on purpose. Flossing for me was an exercise in pain. There was no instant reward in flossing, it didn’t taste good, feel good, or look good. It was just painful. Even though I knew it was good for me and I would keep my teeth if I did it, that did not get me to repeat it every day.

Years went by and I fought a losing battle against this pernicious periodontal disease. Two expensive surgeries, scores of painful teeth cleanings, and several scolding’s from well meaning dental hygienists left me wondering what was my problem? Why, when I knew it was good for me, could I not get this flossing thing to move to automatic, you know, wake up in the morning find yourself flossing and wonder, “when did I start doing this?”

After trying all the tactics to move flossing from manual to automatic and not succeeding, I determined that I was a failure. In fact, I was having the failure conversation with myself in the mirror after a particularly painful teeth cleaning. This conversation consisted of questions like, “what is your problem?” and “How come you can’t do this?” Added to those questions were the berating banter of “is flossing really that hard?” and “you realize your teeth are going to fall out of your head right?”

At this moment of despair, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that I was dressed in my running clothes ready to go on my 300th?consecutive run. I had been streak running for almost a year and at the moment I looked at myself, the words of the dental hygienist who had just cleaned my teeth two days before, rang in my brain, “you know Jeff flossing is exercising your gums, you do it a couple of times a day and your gums will be healthy.” That thought was followed by this thought, “You’ve been running consecutively for 300 days, why don’t you set a streak to floss your teeth?”

“Could it be that simple?” I asked myself.

“Give it a try.” I responded.

Well, that was, as of today, 2,622 days ago. I have not missed a day of flossing at least twice a day for over 7 years, but that being said, it is not anywhere near automatic, I have been repeating the behavior, but I have no hope or delusion that it will one day become automatic.?

The repeatable part of habit is a streak. You set a streak to get the repeatable behavior going and keeping it going. You challenge yourself with the question, “how many days in a row can I do this laughably small behavior?” This challenge gives you repeat fuel. Keeping a record of the number of times in a row you have completed the activity gives you accountability and sharing it gives you and others an opportunity to celebrate. These are the three laws of streaking:

1.?????Make it laughably simple.

2.?????Keep a record. No record, no streak.

3.?????Join or create a streaking community

After I had so much success in flossing and running I started Streaking many other areas of my life, in fact this article is a direct result of a streak to “write at least one sentence every day.” I have set streaks to improve and grow in my professional life, such as opening FranklinCovey’s impact platform at least one time every day; my personal life, such as connect with at least one of my children every day; my spiritual life, such as read at least one verse of scripture every day, and you have already read a couple of my physical streaks, running and flossing. What I have learned is this, if you want atomic habits start streaking.

The best place to share and track your streaks is in the Streaking app. Download it and see how thousands of people are growing and improving through laughably simple streaks.

Keep Streakin’

Jeff