Last night at 10pm, once the girls had gone off to bed, I didn’t do the same. I made a decision to do something else. A decision that was made a few weeks ago, by a different version of myself. Let’s call him past Wallace.
In October 2019, I signed up for the Two bays trail run. A 28km cross country run from Dromana, over Arthurs Seat across to Cape Schanck. Not easy by any stretch of the imagination, and although I’m in decent nick day to day, I needed to bank some serious training to not only survive the run, but to do it well.
Early November, I realised that I needed something to support my training, so I purchased a Garmin watch, that could track my running distance, sleep, heart rate and daily step count. Logging, tracking and accumulating activity over the next few months prior to the race became that little bit easier, I could see the numbers growing and I was able to measure each contribution towards two bays.
Fortunately, a glorious by product of this race prep, was the contribution I was making towards my capacity, which would help prepare me for the upcoming football season.
Two bays came and went as all events do, but the consistency that I had built into my training continued. Everything I had done, and would continue to do, is contributing to the person I want to become, to future.
Every gym session, run, journal entry, podcast, weekly wrap, every book I read and conversation I have… Everything I do, or decide not to, has an impact on the future version of me, future Wallace.
Since November 3rd, when I first started tracking my daily activity on the Garmin watch, I’ve taken 1,066,624 steps. Each day, my target is to hit 10,000. I do pretty well with that most days, and over the last few months I’ve regularly hit streaks of 10-15 days in a row, before I have a lazy day, miss my target and restart the streak at 0.
I realised, because I was measuring my output, that every now and again, a lazy weekend, or an admin day during the week, would be responsible for this streak ending. A few weeks ago the guy I spoke about before , ‘past Wallace’ made a decision to hit a 50 day streak of 10,000 steps or more.
Back to the reason why I didn’t go to bed earlier last night. At 10pm, I had ticked over a little more than 7000 steps, which left me well short of my goal, and in danger of ending my current streak at 24 days. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to, so I laced up my shoes, put my headphones on, and went for a 20 minute walk. Reaching my goal, and ticking off day 25.
To quote the uber consistent Seth Godin,
“Streaks are their own reward.
Streaks create internal pressure that keeps streaks going.
Streaks require commitment at first, but then the commitment turns into a practice, and the practice into a habit.
Habits are much easier to maintain than commitments”
Every habit you create, starts with a streak. Every goal you want to reach, will only come into fruition if the habits you create align with your vision. Start with an action, turn it into a streak and stay consistent.
When I woke up this morning my step count was at 0, as it will be tomorrow. Hitting 10,000 steps yesterday does not guarantee that I’ll hit 10,000 steps today, but the momentum I’ve built will undoubtedly contribute to my total at the end of the day.
Today could be the beginning of your streak, good luck, get to work.
Wallace
P.S My boy Simon Cooper is on a delicious daily email streak. Subscribe via his website! Get around him.
