Lesson 9
Lesson 9 : Habit Tracker
The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become motivated to continue down that path.
When it comes to building better habits, a crucial step is to visualize the progress youâre making, and to be able to see yourself move forward. Perhaps the most straightforward way to visualize your progress is with a âhabit tracker.â
A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine. For example, if you meditate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each of those dates gets an X. As time rolls by, the calendar becomes a record of your habit streak.
As a complement to Atomic Habits, I designed a Habit Journal exactly for this purpose. In addition to the notebook and journaling pages, each journal comes with 12 habit tracking templates, one for each month of the year. Hereâs what it looks like when itâs filled out.
Of course, you donât have to use the journal. You could use a calendar or create your own habit tracker on a sheet of paper.
Once you have created your habit tracker, the mantra to keep in mind is ânever break the chain.â That is, once you start tracking your habits, you donât want to break the chain of crossing off each day or filling in each cell.
âDonât break the chainâ is a powerful mantra. Donât break the chain of stashing money away in your savings account every month and youâll build wealth and gain peace of mind. Donât break the chain of meditation and youâll gain focus and more control over your internal state. Donât break the chain of reading every day and you will finish 20+ books per year. Donât break the chain of practicing guitar every day and youâll gain mastery faster than youâd expect.
There are other forms of habit tracking outside of using a calendar. Iâve heard about quite a few of them from my readers. One woman tracked how many pages of her book manuscript she wrote each day by adding a hairpin to a container after finishing each page. Another man tracked each set of push-ups by adding marbles to a jar. Of course, thereâs also the story from Atomic Habits about the successful stock broker using paper clips to track his sales calls.
No matter how you do it, these strategies provide proof of your progress. One glance at the Xâs on the calendar or the marbles in the jar and you immediately know how much work you have (or havenât) been putting in.
These visual signals of progress can be particularly powerful on a bad day. When youâre feeling down, itâs easy to forget about all the progress you have already made. At this stage of the course, you may feel like youâre putting in a lot of effort without seeing many results. Habit tracking provides visual proof of your hard workâa subtle reminder of how far youâve come and how consistent youâve been.
Letâs talk about how to integrate habit tracking with the other methods weâve discussed in this course.
In my opinion, the best strategy is to make an implementation intention for tracking.
For example:
I record my set in my workout journal after I finish each set at the gym.
I write down what I ate for dinner after I put my plate in the dishwasher in the kitchen.
I record how I slept in my sleep journal after I turn my alarm off in the morning in bed.
I put an X on the calendar after I take my medicine and vitamins in the kitchen.
I write down a moment I shared with my kids after I put them to bed at 8pm in their bedroom.
The completion of the behavior is the cue to write it down. Of course, even with a clear intention, there will be some times when you fall off course.
Whenever this happens to me, I try to remind myself of a simple rule: ânever miss twice.â
If I miss one day, I try to get back into it as quickly as possible. Missing one workout happens, but Iâm not going to miss two in a row. Maybe Iâll eat an entire pizza, but Iâll follow it up with a healthy meal. I canât be perfect, but I can avoid a second lapse. As soon as one streak ends, I get started on the next one.
The breaking of a habit doesnât matter if the reclaiming of it is fast. The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you canât do something perfectly, then you shouldnât do it at all. Never miss twice helps you overcome that pitfall.
The key insight of this lesson is to visualize the progress youâre making each day. If you have to wait for the number on the scale to change, or for your bank account to increase, or for a sense of calm to wash over your life, then the feedback loop is often too long for you to maintain motivation.
If, however, youâre focused on tracking your actions â whether that be the number of workouts you perform each week, the number of sales call you make each day, or the amount of time you spend meditating each morning â then youâll have immediate visual proof that you are showing up and living out the habits that are important to your life and goals.
Last updated