#dontbreakthechain

Streaks & Chains

Bardees, , Leave a comment

I’ve talked often in this blog about the power of chains as a way to track habits, simply because It works. Crossing off any habit as “done”  is the exact kind of short term reward that enforces commitment to an action until it becomes a habit. Seeing the chain of daily wins growing is powerful to keep at it.

James Clear mentioned the example of his father who swims daily, and to keep himself motivated , crosses off the day on his calendar after. Why? because on a day-to-day basis he can’t see the impact of committing to his habit, however,  every time he crosses off that calendar he feels progress towards becoming healthier.

This is a key idea in James’s book Atomic Habits; every time we commit to a habit we cast a vote to the identity of the type of person we want to become. We need to ask ourselves 2 questions to form the right habits for us:

  1. Who is the type of person we want to be?
  2. What choices does this type of person make?

For example, if healthy is our new chosen identity, we need to ask ourselves what would a healthy person do? What meal would he/she pick? What would they say when offered dessert? Every time we work out we also strengthen our new identity as healthy people, our chain would prove it even if we still can’t or feel the results yet. Seeing visual progress helps us keep going instead of quitting.


I enjoy how some applications and platforms also use the concept of chains, Readwise keeps a streak of how many days users read their selection of book highlights.  Akmibo workshops keep streaks of how many days students show up in the workshop in a row and notify them every now and then and also post their names on a board for all streak keepers. As their student, this makes me want to show up even more to keep and grow my streak, this is the funny and lovely thing about our beautiful human brain, it gets so motivated by all this tracking and rewarding. 


Make the magic of streaks work for you too. Start a chain of a new daily habit and keep showing up every single day. Remember to ask what kind of person you want to be, then do what that person does and track it everyday.

Streaks & Chains

#DontBreakTheChain : The Habit Tracker I Love The Most

Bardees, 5 Comments

November was one of the best months I had during the amazing year 2017. A year that I consider a turning point in my life.

I started the month with this post on Facebook. Inspired by Seinfeld and Austin Kleon’s post about this topic in his book “steal like an artist”.

Then, every day for the next 30 days I posted on my social media the “X”; crossing the day off to indicate that I committed to my #dontbreakthechain challenge of waking up early and doing my morning routine.

It was the first time for me to be public about my 5am habit although I shared it here before, but few people only knew about my blog. And although it was a fairly regular habit for me that I got back to in October after summer craziness and September’s adjustments; being committed publicly like that felt so different and gave me such happiness and a purpose boost that I didn’t expect.

The outcome I really did not see coming though was how many of my dear friends encouraged me and approached me via their messages, wanting to know how I did it and why. Their genuine curiosity was refreshing and I realized then that I started meeting my tribe. Little did I know that some were actually starting their own chain challenges because they got so motivated by my posts.

Weeks later, I received an overwhelming thank you note from an old friend whom I admire sharing with me the impact of my daily progress on her and how she applied it herself in her own way and succeeded.

I had goose bumps reading her message! As my sister said in alignment with great spiritual teachings that what you give, you give yourself. My friend motivated me when I needed to hear it.

My sweet November was indeed an experience worth sharing and repeating. It led to deep conversations and exchanges with wonderful people that I’m truly thankful for. That’s why I started the challenge again in January. I’m a better person when I wake up early to have my alone time to write, meditate and plan.

I also don’t know who else would I be helping by posting my daily X. I’m showing up consistently and I know for sure that new people will reach out to me with the same curiosity and I will welcome them to my tribe.

#DontBreakTheChain : The Habit Tracker I Love The Most

No Snooze Challenge

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On August 14th, I started a personal “No Snooze” challenge on Snapchat by writing down the dates of the upcoming working days for a 4-week period on a post-it. Every day I succeed, I cross it off on this post-it and share the picture on my Snapchat. I don’t have many friends there yet, just close ones but enough to push me through.

The “No snooze challenge” was another way of saying I want to wake up earlier. Having kids naturally mean I wake up early. But earlier than them is my goal. Having an alone time where I can get centered before the day starts is just so rewarding.

So how did the challenge go?

  • I told my friends the night before I started about it and shared the Post-it photo with them.
  • I set the alarm at 5:45 AM everyday,  placed my mobile few footsteps away from me in order to leave the bed to turn it off.
  • The first few days were not so difficult. Why, you ask? Accountability, my dear friend. That’s the word that made me stick to my challenge. It’ crossing off the day and sharing it proudly with friends that kept me going.
  • I successfully stuck to my challenge for 18 out of 20 days!
  • The first time I didn’t  was not because I slept in. That day I did wake up on time and started my morning routine as usual. Thirty minutes later, however, I still couldn’t open my eyes because I stayed up late the night before, so I got back to bed and slept for 30 more minutes.
  • Next day, when the alarm went off, I  moved up my waking up time 15 minutes later to 6 AM instead and woke up immediately when it rang. That’s why I have mixed feelings regarding crossing off this day.
  • Few days later, I also slept late but managed not to hit snooze in the morning. Nevertheless, the tempting idea of going back to bed kept me out of focus, until I decided I needed to wake my body for real. Therefore, I put on my  headset and played the most upbeat music I have and started jumping up and down in the kitchen. Can you imagine? me jumping to music in the kitchen at around 6:15 AM while everybody was peacefully sleeping in the house without any clue on the craziness happening under their roof. It was fun really, glad I made that choice.

The feeling of being control of my day during this challenge was amazing. I started the day with reading a page of one of my favorite inspiration books then meditating for 10 minutes. Next, I listened to some prayers or  conversations and  interviews with spiritual leaders while getting everything ready in the kitchen like lunch boxes (if not prepared the day before), milk bottles and coffee. Afterwards, I wrote in my   “one sentence journal for mums” highlighting the most important thing about my kids’ previous day.

Next in my routine was writing a page in my journal  about the happenings of the day before. Followed by waking up everybody and getting ready to leave the house. I even had time to apply the kind of makeup I like which is a feel good booster in itself to me. Of course this also led to getting to work on time everyday.

After this challenge we had long national holidays. Getting back to waking up as early as 5:45 AM was so difficult to me especially that fall started which means  it was getting darker in those early hours.

Luckily, I ran into “How to become an early riser” by Steve Pavlina. Recommended by Mark McGuinness in his new awesome Free ebook “productivity for creative people“. That’s all the push I needed to get back on track, thus writing these words at 6:45  in the morning!

I am now waking up at 5:30 AM  (3rd day now) and planning to continue to do so to pursue my creative interests, such as writing in this blog. I didn’t share this update on Snapchat yet because it’s now a commitment not just a challenge, although  I have a new post-it and I’m crossing off the days when I wake up.

I believe this challenge was the first step towards a series of changes to a better and fuller life. Join me!

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No Snooze Challenge