I’m Done with Streak Habits for Three Days Straight Now

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

I think my biggest problem in life is defining priorities. Everything feels important. It doesn’t matter if it’s write that novel… or that one… or that one… or the other scores of ideas that I’ve had throughout the years. It doesn’t matter if it’s watching that TV show… or that one… or that one… You get my point. It all feels important. I wonder if the barrier to success is the ability to choose a priority and stick to it.

I’m a huge fan of self-help and motivation. I would never say that it’s bullshit, but I wonder if it’s misguided at times. We listen to successful people and how they did it, and then we wonder why it doesn’t work for us. Maybe it was their motivation, not their method? I don’t know.

I’m constantly reminded that I don’t do well with streak habits. I decide I want to do a specific thing every day, and then I beat myself up if I don’t do it. The problem is that I tend to go that one step further and stop doing the thing altogether for a while. I feel the need to regroup, figure out what went wrong, and course correct. The problem is that’s not what I need to do. What I personally need to do is never create a streak habit to begin with, and measure my productivity overall, not on the success of each habit. There are too many for me to do consistently, so I just need…

“…to consistently do?”

*looks perplexed*

“That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

*looks mysterious* “Maybe…”

I think that the first step for me is putting in the time each day, and the second step is trying to steer myself towards things with higher productivity value. Posting a blog post every day is only a good thing if I have something to say. Writing 3,500 words a day only works if 3,000 of them aren’t useless. I know what my motivation has always been. I work on things and I generate ideas as I go. The problem is the number of ideas is measurable, but the number of useful ideas is less clear.

Chris McGinty is a blogger who is already going through his mid-10-weeks crisis and it’s only the second week.