A few months ago I shared how I was re-anchoring six daily habit to my days and the habit app that I was using to help me do so.
For a few months I was on a really consistent streak with my habits and it felt SO GOOD.
And then Q1 of this year kicked my ass a little. I had Covid for the second time in January, a nasty chest infection in February, a cold in March, and my chronic health illness flaring most weeks too.
And all I kept thinking about was how habit tracking is great and all until life happens and we fall ‘off track’.
Because expecting ourselves to have the same capacity every single day is just utterly unreasonable - especially for those of us living on the slower lane of life, whether that’s because of health conditions or caregiving responsibilities or just not being a human who thrives at a go-go-go pace.
What I wanted was a habit app that could meet my humanness each day, where I could toggle between ‘modes’ depending on what type of day I was having so that I was only tracking habits that felt supportive and sustainable for me to do so each day.
But… it’s going to take time for me to create that app. Years probably to develop the skills and have the time and capacity to do so.
So I just stopped tracking in my habit app.
Once I knew the type of relationship I really wanted to build with my habits, tracking the exact same habits every single day just didn’t feel aligned for me anymore. It felt really disheartening to see days and days of certain habits being left unticked because I just didn’t have the spoons or capacity to actually do them those days.
But then I realised: am I just not going to stay in dialogue with my habits for YEARS until I create my ideal habit tracking app?
That didn’t feel good either. I find a lot of value in staying in dialogue with my habits, gently tracking them, and celebrating showing up for myself and the moments that support me to prioritise my mental and physical health each day.
So I decided to create an option for the interim so that I could reconnect with my daily habits but in a way that felt more sustainable and aligned with my shifting needs and capacity each day.
My husband uses Notion for managing his own life and business so I asked him to help me create a simple database where I could track my habits each day and be able to set three different modes (Great Days, OK Days, and Slow Days) so that I would only be tracking each day what actually felt sustainable and supportive to ask of myself.
It’s super simple and doesn’t have all the functionality we hope to build into an app one day but I can now define each day what type of day I’m having and that will then populate that days habits with the ones I’ve decided are sustainable for that type of day.
I also have a weekly and monthly overview so that I can celebrate the tiny wins of my version of consistency and get an idea of how many great, ok, and slow days I have a month too.
I share all of this today to say: if habit tracking hasn't been working for you either because you’re a human whose capacity and needs fluctuate each day, you’re not the problem.
What if we only encouraged ourselves to show up for the habits, rituals, and routines that actually honoured our needs and capacity that day?
And what if consistency doesn’t have to look like never missing a day of a single habit but instead just consistently meeting ourselves where we’re at each day?
And if you’re thinking: damn, Jen, this habit tracker is exactly what I need too - it’s probably going to take me a few years to create the full app but I’m going to live in the Notion database for a little while and see how it needs tweaking and improving and if I think it’s good enough I’ll hopefully be able to share it with you to use yourself soon!
So here’s to a gentler approach to habit building and tracking, to meeting our humanness every step of the way, to not believing the lie that we’re failing if we can’t tick off the exact same habits every single day.
Until next time,
Jen
I’ve had such a similar experience! I started tracking habits after you shared your post a while back about that. But then I hit a period where I wasn’t able to tick anything off for a week or 2. I still went back to doing some of my habits, but I was just no longer tracking them… and for me that was okay. It’s fascinating to see how you and your husband created this tracker in Notion! I’m curious to see how you find it working for you. And kudos for your self awareness on this journey!!
I’m so glad you are always finding ways to just meet yourself where you are at with what is happening. I was wondering if there would be a point where you felt a certain way about the habit app. After trying something similar, it kind of made me feel worse when I saw the stats of when I just wasn’t able to get what I wanted done bc of the seasons of major struggle I have been weathering. I do think the app has its time and place—it helped me get on track with a couple small things but I had to just let go after a while! Well done and thank you for sharing 💛
P.S. I love notion.