How to Keep Your Streak Alive
Riding the (motivation) wave is only a stop on the road to success. There’s more to showing up than, well, showing up.
Almost a full year ago, I felt like my language learning had hit a major plateau. I was struggling to show up for regular study, and I couldn’t even remember the French word for “fork,” despite having used it countless times.
Something had to change.
And then I read an article about someone who managed to keep a three-year streak on Duolingo. The dude only used two streak freezes during the entire 1095 days.
Legend.
I was inspired. I promised myself I’d show up to at least one minute of Duolingo every day, with no exceptions. And I did.
Until a couple of weekends ago, when a particularly brutal hangover and resultant anxiety-induced cleaning spree meant I completely missed my first session in 340 days.
I actually planned to write this article before this happened. I was going to share my secrets to success with you.
As I write this, I’m slap-boxing with my Imposter Syndrome. I ruined my nearly perfect streak. I’m not perfect. What even qualifies me to speak on this any more? Right?
Hell no.
Missing one day in 365 is — contrary to the opinions of the grumpy little perfectionist/ bridge troll gatekeeping my feelings of accomplishment — pretty freaking impressive.
When have I ever done something every single day (except one) for a whole year? I can barely keep up with daily showers, and those are objectively pleasant.
So, I’m choosing to bask.
And I’m going to share what I’ve learned so far.
Tip 1: Make the goal showing up, even for one minute
I don’t need to tell you that our motivation to get things done experiences many peaks and valleys.
You can feel one minute to the next your drive to mow the lawn wane.
You know what it feels like to be so stoked to go for a run and then realize that getting dressed made you feel accomplished enough to do nothing else for the rest of the day.
You understand how easily motivation to do a hard thing can slip through your fingers.
And there’s science to support this.
BJ Fogg talks about how there are times when we feel motivated to do hard things. And there are times we don’t.
When we feel motivated, the prompts to do the hard thing (like reminders on our phones, our running shoes by the door, or a sunny day) are inspiring and spur us into action.
But when we’re not, those same prompts can feel annoying or even stressful to look at.
So the trick is to capitalize on the “good” moments and do the hard thing.
Do it right away, but only do a tiny bit. Remember what I said a couple of weeks ago about feedback loops?
The motivation wave shows us that we’re not always primed to try new things or show up for ourselves. And you can’t always make your motivation line up with the doing.
Sometimes the doing has to happen whether you want to or not. Especially if you’re keeping a Duolingo streak alive.
So where’s the middle ground?
Do a hard thing that only takes a minute. Keep showing up for that minute unless you’re feeling motivated to do more.
Tip 2: Get it over with early
While I get this may seem counter-intuitive to some, I promise it’s not.
You can surf the wave of motivation right on over to this next tip. Trust me!
The thing is, we don’t all have the same 24 hours. No matter what the celebrities, influencers, and kagillionaires of the world say.
Sure, we all have 24 hours. But do we, can we, use that entire 24 hours for hard things? Obviously not. Life often gets in the way for us plebs, and we don’t have the resources to delegate our life admin to someone else.
So if you’re trying to do more hard things, sometimes you need to capitalize on the moment. Make hay while the sun shines, ya know?
For me, this often means doing my language practice first thing. If I get it out of the way early, I don’t spend the day worrying about when I’ll find a spare moment to do it.
And I don’t agonize about not having done it at 10 p.m. when I’m trying to gua shua my way to dreamland.
Win-win.
Tip 3: Don’t bite off more if you’re already full
People always get so gung-ho when they plan to try something new.
I know I do.
When I wanted to start learning a language, I bought grammar books and courses. I was envisioning myself studiously poring over those books for an hour every day.
I think you can figure out for yourself how that went.
That’s because we need to make a new habit sustainable over the long term. It’s not realistic for my goal to be studying French for an hour every day simply because I do not have an hour every day that I can use for studying.
I have food to cook, laundry to do, exercise, and my other hobbies to attend to. I have a full-time job that deserves my full attention.
But one minute? I can spare a minute at any time of the day. We all can.
A minute is the time equivalent of chump change.
If one minute of your hobby is all you can do day to day without burning out, just do the one minute. But if you feel like you could do more, do more. If that motivation peak hits and you feel like, “Hell yeah, I can study French until the cows come home. This is awesome!”, then (and I say this emphatically) GIVE ‘ER!
Ride that wave, baby!
Ultimately, being patient and realistic is going to be the clearest path to success. You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay.
Some days you’re going to avoid it all day long until the guilt sets in, and you’re frantically conjugating verbs and brushing your teeth at the same time.
Others, you’re going to practically skip to your desk and feel truly excited to knuckle down and do the damn thing.
That’s why we call it the motivation wave. Not a slope. Not a mountain. Not an escalator to success. A wave.
Maybe even a tsunami if you drink more caffeine than your twitchy body can handle.
Other than that, just keep showing up. You’re worth the effort.
Have any habits you seem to have no problem keeping up with? What’s something you’ve come so close to accomplishing, only to mess up at the last second? Do you have any tactical advice to help me knock out my inner critic? I’d love to hear from you!
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