Go Ahead and Break Your Streak
Over the years, we’ve tried many techniques to reinforce a new habit. Connecting your ego to everyday activities is just one of them, and it is not for everyone. And yet it seems like every app wants you to take serious care of maintaining a consistent streak. Fuck it. It is okay to interrupt the streak.
When I started wearing Apple Watch, I was in the habit of taking two full days off a week. I worked hard every weekday and took the weekend. But when I got my five day ring-closing streak, I didn’t want to break it. I opened the yoga app on my phone for a 30 minute “workout” of lazy stretching. “This is probably good,” I thought at first.
But over time, my vain practice of “yoga” became even more vain. I looked at my watch as bedtime approached to see if I got enough exercise walking that day or if I would need to pretend to do yoga before midnight. I missed the days when on rest days I forgot about exercise and allowed myself to relax.
Stripes don’t measure what’s important
There are two reasons every app from Calm to Duolingo wants you to keep up. One is that because of the bandwidth, you use the app every day, and as we know, companies make more money the more they can get you to use their app . How much do you think Apple cares about getting up 12 times a day, rather than having you wear their watch for at least 12 hours?
Second, the developer of the application is easy to program and does not require any data other than whether or not you have used the application. Most apps can’t tell you apart from lazy sleep and inactivity in your workout, or taking a hard-earned day off to allow your mind and muscles to recover.
Therefore, if you find your streak satisfying, you should ask yourself a few questions:
How important is my lane to what I am trying to achieve?
Rest days are important. In fact, few things in life are so fragile that missing a day is a real setback. If you missed a day of exercise, tomorrow you will still be in shape.
If you run, try adding up the number of miles or minutes you run each week. If you exercise, find out how many days per week are right for your goals and note if you did the appropriate workouts.
How will I feel if I make a mistake and interrupt my streak?
This will happen over time. Will you be able to say, “Well, we ran well,” or you won’t like it? Feeling unwell should be your motivation – keep up the good work or you will feel unwell – but it might be healthier psychologically not to set yourself up to feel like a failure.
Taking breaks is okay. It’s okay to skip a day because of illness or because you have a chaotic workday and need a day off due to other responsibilities.
You can even schedule breaks that you take on purpose . Remember how important rest days are? If every time you interrupt your streak, you feel guilty about hurting the senses of an app, this streak isn’t helping you. You should be able to take a day off and enjoy it.