Jerry Seinfeld would famously write a joke a day and would maintain his streak by marking the calendar.
Streak management can be a powerful productivity tool, but what happens when the streak is broken?
This is my 252nd consecutive blog post. I’ve been fortunate to maintain this streak, while appreciating the chance that I may miss a day. And if I do, I’m unable to say I’ve done a blog every day since 2021.
We’ve all experienced the power of streaks, and also the powerful resistance when a streak is broken. While we’re on a streak, it feels like nothing can stop us. But then it can suddenly break, and we feel like we have to start again from scratch, or we feel like we’ve undone all our work.
The truth is your past streak created something meaningful, and that doesn’t disappear if the cycle breaks. The only resistance is the one in your mind that overweights the importance of the number you’re using to track your streak.
You’re not starting again. You’re picking up from where you left off.
Yes, I may break this daily streak of blog posts, but that doesn’t mean my prior blogs disappear, nor does it mean I shouldn’t write any more. It just means I must detach myself from the notion that writing a blog every day “since 2021” is significant.
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