Which Is Better--A Habit or a Streak?
We just got into the month of June, and I was thinking about ideas I could implement to get some results I’d like to see over the summer. Laura Vanderkam, one of only a couple of lifestyle bloggers I follow (the other one’s being Gretchen Rubin—of course) has been on a running streak for well over a year now (800+ days). She committed to running at least a mile every single day, and she has done so even if she’s been on a trip and had to run around the hotel room for a mile. She’s thinking, though, of how to end the streak and is considering 1,000 days as the goal.
But she’s not going to end her habit of running, which is a very different thing. While Gretchen uses the “don’t break the chain” idea as one of her habit strategies, referencing Jerry Seinfeld’s writing calendar as an example (where each day he writes has a big red “X” on it), it seems to me that there’s a built-in danger of using the chain/streak idea for something you want to keep doing for the foreseeable future, and that is:
Once you’ve broken the chain, or ended the streak, you feel as if you’ve either spoiled things or taken yourself off the hook, so now it’s harder to continue.
The three activities I was considering for streaks from June 1 until the start of Chorale rehearsals on August 20 were:
- Do my upper-arm exercises to get rid of my “bat wings.”
- Go on my regular almost-3-mile walk.
- Brush and floss my teeth right after dinner as a deterrent to evening snacking.
Saturday, the 1st, Jim and I went to an evening wedding with a meal afterwards. There was no chance for me to brush my teeth there, obviously. (Well, I guess I could have brought along my supplies and brushed my teeth in the church bathroom, but that would have been kind of strange.) So I didn’t do that routine even on the first day of the so-called streak. We ended up staying w-a-a-y later than I had thought we would, but when we got home we went ahead and did our walk. It was pretty dark by the time we got back to the house! But there will certainly be days when I just can’t squeeze in the 45 minutes to an hour it takes. As for the arm exercises, I think I overdid it a little since my right arm is pretty sore. It would be foolish for me to force myself to keep doing them, so I need to give myself a rest for a couple of days. It may be that they shouldn’t be done every day anyway.
So two out of three of my streaks have ended already, and we’re only on June 3. But they’re still good habits that I want to incorporate into my life. The walks tend to fade in and out; I’m just getting back into them after almost three months of lessened activity caused by my foot surgery on March 11. (It was interesting to me, by the way, how much tireder I got on our trip in May from much less walking than I did last year on our trip to France; fitness levels really do make a difference.) The toothbrushing can be done any evening that I’m home after dinner. And it may be that the arm exercises can be resumed as a streak once I’ve toughened up a little.
What’s the difference between a streak and a habit? It’s the allowance for mistakes or unavoidable breaks, the overall goal of consistency rather than perfection, and, in particular:
The use of if/then thinking.
“If I am at home after dinner, then I will immediately brush and floss my teeth instead of waiting until bedtime.”
“If my arms are not giving me signs that I’ve overdone it, then I will do the exercises.”
“If I can get going soon enough after dinner, then I will go on a walk.”
“If I know I will be gone in the evening, then I will get my walk in right after breakfast.”
This type of habit formation will, on the one hand, save you from an unnecessary feeling of guilt or failure when you unavoidably break the chain, and on the other hand keep you from making excuses. Are you able to go on a walk after dinner? Then you should do so. But if you’re going out for the evening then you have your fallback plan. And if neither one of those things happens because of scheduling difficulties? Then you’ll get right back on track tomorrow. Case closed.
Well, that’s it for now. What about you? Do you have some achievable goals for the summer that you can build into habits?
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