Atomic habit 101: Habit Tracker
We all make promises to ourselves. Promises like “I want to be mentally strong”, “become physically active”, “become an expert in my domain” and make no mistakes, those self promises are hard.
It calls for you to subscribe to a certain activity that you must repeat over the course, i.e., establish the habit. For example, your wish to become a writer, means to accomplish that promise is to write more and regularly i.e., include “write X no. of article per week” habit in your life.
Sadly seldom we are able to continue to those habits as it demands discipline, a powerful will, and energy to stay by them. If you are in the same boat as me where you weren’t able to follow-through them, then habit tracker can do wonder for you.
Habit formation is a long race. It often takes time for the desired results to appear. And while you are waiting for the long-term rewards of your efforts to accumulate, you need a reason to stick with it in the short-term. You need some immediate feedback that shows you are on the right path.
What is a habit tracker?
Simple as having a calendar out and marking with a tick or cross against that day. A calendar can be digital or physical. After you performed a specific activity, do a mark. For example, if you went running on weekends, do a tick for Saturday and Sunday.
Why track habits?
1. Habits are the only sure path to success
There’s no such thing as an overnight success. Take any of your heroes. From investing legend Warren Buffett to sporting superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. They are honing their skill-set for many preceding decades by reiterating certain actions (i.e., habits) that perform well for them. If you want to be successful in life, you must stick with certain habits.
However, sticking to a habit requires extreme motivation and strong will power, especially those dreadful days when you felt less inspired or distracted hence stop continuing those habits. You ultimately spiral downwards that result in either giving on those promises or you unable to give your 100% i.e., remain mediocre.
This is where habit-tracking shines.
Its give you immediate reward, act as motivation. It is motivating to see the progress you are making. You don’t want to break your streak.
2. What can be measured, can be improved
Humans are lousy at self-evaluation. Internet is full of resources backed by scientific experiments where we tend to have a distorted view about oneself.
Some of those studies:
The most practical approach to keep our view with realism is to measure it, track it.
1. It keeps you honest. You have concrete data to look upon instead of following a distorted reality.
2. How you are performing? Opportunity to assess whether your effort is on-par or you need to increase it.
3. Discovery. You can come across a hidden pattern which can help you to improve.
Why people find it difficult to keep a tracker
Now we have established that habit tracker can make a person stick with their habits which help to achieve one’s promises, then why we find it challenging?
Reason being our lazy controller i.e., Human Mind. Initial tendency of the human mind is to reject activity that calls for considerable effort, more so if it is a new activity hence not only that individual has to concentrate on the habit itself but has a burden to record it too.
The solution to this problem is not to get overwhelmed. There is no need to measure your entire life. Below are some tricks I employed to make it easy.
Tricks to make habit tracking easy
1. Use a digital form of the tracker as they offer less friction than physical calendars. I like Goal Tracker, it’s simple and has a nice intuitive UI.
2. Tracking should be limited to your important habits. It is better to focus on a few instead sporadically track many.
3. Track it as soon as you are done with your habit. It keeps your tracker up to date plus acts as your immediate reward for the hard shift.
