The Best Alternative to Habit Tracking

A technique better than tracking your habits like a Snapchat Streak

I remember the high school days when I did Snapchat Streaks (if you know, you know).

If you also did Snapchat streaks, you probably relate to this:

You and your friend had a really high streak going. But one day, you miss the streak, and it’s broken.

It’s heartbreaking and discouraging. You wonder if it’s even worth starting the streak up again. Especially since you spent so many times (well really, minimum one snap a day), investing into the streak.

And you know what this entire experience reminds me of?

Habit Tracking.

I used habit tracking for a long time. Ever since I got into starting new habits and tracking them, traditional habit tracking was what I used.

However, each time I broke the streak, I felt discouraged, questioned whether I should keep doing the habit, and most times, just stop doing the habit altogether (it’s JUST like breaking a Snapchat streak).

But then I discovered this new technique that HELPED me build many of my habits today. It’s called the percentages technique and that is what I’ll be talking about in this blog post today.

Maybe habit tracking didn’t work for you in the past. Maybe you didn’t like doing streaks on your habits too. So maybe this technique will be a game changer for you like it was for mine.

Then, once you know the technique, maybe start a new habit? Here are a few ideas for you:

• Habits for Your Personal Development
• Essential Daily Habits
• Habits for Better Productivity

You can also find some more articles on habits here. Check them out once you finish reading this blog post!

Have you ever heard of this percentages technique before or something familiar? I’m curious to know! Leave a comment and feel free to be open as you’d like (At the moment, I’m the only one that sees the comments).

Let’s get into it.

The Problem with Habit Tracking

1 – It Stops You from Starting the Habit in the First Place

Habit tracking systems help you stick with your new habits. However, it’s designed to help you stick with your habits indefinitely.

Because think about this -> habit tracking would allow you to have an ongoing streak for who knows how long with your new habits. If you’re like me, not knowing how long you’re going to commit to tracking that habit is a bit intimidating.

There were some habits that I had never started just because the thought of tracking it scared me.

2 – One Failure Breaks the Streak (which leads to discouragement and giving up)

If you had ever done Snapchat streaks (those were the days!), you would know that losing that streak makes you not feel bothered to start the streak again (especially if it was a high number such as 100 or 500). The reason why was not bothered to start the streak again is because we feel like we wasted time keeping the streak alive. Therefore, ONE day when we broke the streak felt discouraging.

And guess what, this is the same with our habits! Missing one day on the habit tracker can give us the thought to just give it up altogether.

You feel like you’ve wasted a lot of time attempting to start that new habit and because of that ONE failure, you don’t think it’s worth starting it again.

3 – Habit Tracking is another habit to keep up with

When you think about it, tracking the new habit is a habit.

This is tricky especially if the habit you’re going to track is a challenging one. It’s going to feel like a hassle adding another habit on top of that habit.

And what happens if you break the streak on habit tracking? Then the habits you were tracking gets broken too.

Alternative to Habit Tracking – Percentages

Technique

What is it?

So, instead of tracking your habits by the streaks, track your habits by the percentage.

Basically, every day for a month, if you’ve done the habit, just mark it down. Technically it’s still like habit tracking except we’re not going to focus on the streak. Instead, we’re just going to focus on how many times you have done the habit (over the times you failed to do it).

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For instance, say you started a new habit to drink a gallon of water a day. Every single day, just like habit tracking, note down when you completed that habit. Even if you have a few missed days, just keep going.

Because, at the end of the month, you’ll add up the days you’ve done the habit, and ignore the times you didn’t. Say that in a 30-day month, you did the habit for 24 days. Therefore, you missed 6 days.

BUT you still did the habit 24/30 days. That is 80% of that month!

As you can see, by looking at the percentage of when you’ve done your habits over the streak, you actually did better than you thought you did!

Now, if you want to continue to improve, all you’ve got to do is work on improving that percentage for next month! There is no need to focus on perfection here, just focus on progression!

You don’t need to beat yourself up if you’ve missed a day or two. Just keep going and you’ll be guaranteed progress.

Benefits of This Technique

1 – It’s Not About Getting Things Perfect.

The best part about the percentage’s technique is that it’s not about getting things perfect through a streak. Instead, it’s about seeing what you were able to accomplish and the times that you were able to do the habit.

With habit tracking, because we’re focused on a streak, it’s basically focusing on getting things perfect. And when we focus on getting things perfect, we tend to focus more on the times we didn’t do the habit than on the times we did.

2 – You focus more on what you’ve accomplished than the things you haven’t done

Unlike habit tracking where you tend to focus on when you didn’t do the habit, with the percentages’ technique, you’re looking at the times you’ve completed the habit.

When you look at the percentage of when you’ve done the habit in that month, that helps you focus more on what you’ve done rather than what you haven’t done.

3 – It boosts your confidence

Habit tracking tends to hurt our confidence if we see missed days. We associate missed days with failure and completely ignore the days we did the habit.

But with the percentages’ technique, we focus more on the days we did the habit. We focus on the fact that there were days when we did do the habit. As a result, it boosts our confidence.

And also, seeing the percentage of when we’ve done the habit in the month can give us some encouragement to increase that percentage the next month. It doesn’t pressure us to get things perfect after all.

Take a SMALL STEP

So, if you want to get started with this technique, here are some steps:

1. Pick a habit you want to track.
2. Every day for a month, note down when you did and didn’t do the habit. Whether you do the habit that day or not, keep striving to do it.
3. When the month ends, count the number of times you did the habit (and completely ignore the times you didn’t).
4. Turn that number into a percentage (number of days you did the habit divided by number of total days multiplied by 100)

Progress Over Perfection

Ultimately, the big difference with this technique over traditional habit tracking is that you focus more on progress over perfection.

And focusing on progress over perfection is important anyway. Because when we’re striving to get things perfect all the time, it’s hard to move forward and take small steps. If we’re only focusing on progressing, that’s when we improve.

I actually wrote a book about taking small steps to progression called… Small Steps to Progression which you can download for free here. It’s also available on the Free Resource Library when you can find a goals and habits journal as well! (Remember to use that habit tracker to track the percentage, not the streak).

So, I hope you continue to take it easy on yourself, even if it’s small steps.

-Lauren 😊

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Similar articles you might like:

How to Level Up Your Habits

How to Build Life Changing Habits

Something to Think About First Before Starting a New Habit

Why Habit Tracking Isn’t the Best System to Use

The Compound Effect – Important to Read for your Habits!

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