Streaks are an extremely powerful motivational tool that act as a positive flywheel to achieving your goals. Streaks are typically a continued set of daily actions with a specific goal. Examples of streaks from wildly different applications:
- Snapchat streaks – when you send direct snaps back and forth with a friend for several consecutive days
- Pokemon Go catch streaks – when you catch Pokemon for several consecutive days
- FitBit active days – when you reach your step / activity goal daily
- Starbucks challenges – some challenges require purchase / try a new product for several consecutive days
- Streaks – there’s even an app that helps you form habits!
This gamified mechanism is powerful for a number of reasons:
- They’re habit forming. The longer you do the same thing, the more your brain and or body become familiar with the action(s).
- Streaking is self strengthening and highly addictive – every day you successfully complete a streak, seeing the progress motivates you for tomorrow.
- The positive momentum of streaks taps into loss aversion theory – once you are on a roll, you don’t want to stop for fear of ending your success
I personally love streaks and it’s an extremely powerful tool.
I’ve used streaks in the past to:
- Track daily exercise / walks
- Cut something out of my diet – caffeine and booze
- Write daily
- ….and many others
These were all successful while the streak was going. That said, once you miss a day, it is very easy to fall back to old habits. That’s the downfall of streaks – there is no mechanism to continue the motivation once an activity is stopped which has a rebound effect.
What do you think about streaks?
The Objective Co 