Yesterday this Hero On A Mission (HOAM) didn’t write a blog post. Perhaps you noticed. It ended a 109-day streak of blogging every day about being a HOAM. I’m disappointed I missed a day. But I also know that the most important thing to do when a streak like that is broken is to simply start a new streak.
You can learn from a comedian
I’ve learned my “streak thinking” by listening to interviews done with James Clear about his book Atomic Habits. In it he talks about starting and keeping new habits. He says the idea of creating streaks and never letting a broken streak go more than one day came from the comedian, Jerry Seinfeld.
When Seinfeld started his comedy career, he quickly learned he needed good jokes. And the only way to get good jokes was to write more jokes. So he began the habit of writing jokes every single day. He used his calendar to keep track of his streak. Every day he wrote a joke, he would put a big X over that day on the calendar. Soon he began to visually see the streak. That gave him motivation to not want to break it.
Nobody’s perfect. All good streaks come to an end. What do you do then? Using the visual of Jerry Seinfeld’s calendar with X’s all over it, Seinfeld said, “Never let two days without an X go bye.”
Today is day #1 of my new streak
My goal is to break my previous streak of 109 days of blogging about being a HOAM. This time I’m more aware of what it takes to maintain a streak. I’m also looking forward to continuing to learn about what it means to be a HOAM.
Writing something each day:
- forces me to think deeply about what I’m experiencing.
- forces me to be clear about my thinking.
- helps me change because it is so much harder to ignore things that need changing in me.
- allows me to share what I’m learning with you.
What streak do you need to start?
How could you visually keep track of it?
What will you do when the streak gets broken?
