written by BRICE HOGAN | MOTIVATION, HABITS
I recently broke a couple of streaks. I hate to admit it because I worked so hard at maintaining them.
Everyone likes to maintain some sort of good streak
Make your bed
do a push-up
Wake up on time
Read a book
write one thing in your journal
call a friend
take a walk every day
These are all great streaks I broke my streak of going to the gym and it sucked. The streak I broke was I had been going to gym at least 5 days over the last 40 weeks of the year.
To say I was unhappy is an understatement. You work so hard to accomplish something and then you feel all is lost. I mean I wasn't in the pit of despair but I wasn't happy either.
So here is what happened:
The Day My Streak ended on Purpose
I woke up it was a Saturday morning, and I wasn't feeling very motivated (I wrote a post on this recently check it out) to really do much. Hence the streak of working out was broken. So why didn't I get up and go? I had worked so hard every day to get to the gym and all of a sudden I didn't feel like it?
To be honest I felt like I needed a break. That's right I choose to break my streak. I will say it right up front streaks are meant to be broken.
Here are some amazing sports streaks that are incredible:
UCLA won 7 National Championships in a row
Cal Ripkin Jr. played in 2632 games in a row
The San Antonios Spurs made the playoffs 22 years in a row
Rafael Nadal won 81 straight matches
What do all of these streaks have in a common they came to an end.ks
The Psychology of Streaks
Streaks like pressure build up over time this goes for winning and losing streaks. Some streaks start out as a few days, then weeks, months, years, and so on.
The more time passes the more pressure and intensity of the streak build. I remember when I was playing basketball in my teens I had a consecutive free-throw streak of 50 in a row.
I could feel the psychological pressure in my own mind building not to miss the next free throw until I did. I can say I wasn't happy about it, my teenage brain didn't want to accept it. However, that was like setting the reset and I began a new streak.
Here is what you feel like when your streak ends:
Anxiety
Disappointment
Anger
Lack of Confidence
Unsure
Unsettled
All normal things to feel, especially if it's a good habit you are trying to build. You don't want to feel like a failure or let yourself down, if you didn't write in your journal that day or missed your workout.
Starting Again
If you think it's hard to start again, it's not. The reason you think its hard you look at the previous streak and you start to measure yourself against it. Especially if it was a long streak. You might think how can I ever do that again.
Streaks are not made up of months and years. They are made up of habits that happen every single day. It's these small little habits that make the biggest impact when we do them over and over again.
What To Do If you Break the Chain
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