Since 2017 I’ve been a member of the 2XX workouts in 20XX Facebook group. I’ve always made it– most years screaming in on the last day of the year, sometimes doing two or more workouts to squeak through. But hey, a win’s a win.
Until 2025. I was chugging along until the beginning of fall. Then, for no particular reason, I trailed off. Stopped posting. I felt like I should resume, but I didn’t.
Then in 2026, I restarted, only to stop again after recording 6 or 7 workouts. Hmmm.
I’ve never had an easy relationship with challenges– they bring out my inner belligerent teenager, ready to flip off anyone (including my non-teenaged self) who’s trying to put me on a schedule of (Heaven forbid) self-improvement. But my non-teenaged self knows it’s not really self-improvement I’m aiming at; rather, it’s self-care. Huh.
I’ve been a close-to-daily meditator since the pandemic. Before 2020, I meditated off and on for decades. But the combination of extreme necessity and a handy app (I’ve boosted the Happier app a lot here, but there are loads of them to try) has helped me set up and maintain a practice that works for me. As they say, the numbers don’t lie…
The co-most important lesson I’ve learned from 308 weeks of close-to-daily meditation (along with “just breathe”) is that the streak that matters is the streak of one. Being and doing at the time is the thing. Not for what it will yield down the road, but for what it does now, in that moment.
Yes, that sounds cheesy. But a) something can be both cheesy and true at the same time; and b) I’m trying to be sincere here, so don’t pick on me… 🙂
Back to the 226 workouts in 2026: It’s June 28, so we’re almost at the six-month mark. I’m restarting a focus on doing and recording workouts as of yesterday. My plan is 113 workouts by the end of the year. I started last night with yoga before bed. That’s one. I can continue with streaks of one at a time.
Time to do some more yoga now.
Dear readers, how do you feel about streaks? Interrupting them, restarting them? I’m not asking for advice here, but it would be cool to hear how these experiences feel for you. I’ll report back in a while on mine.
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I only wish your issues didn’t feel so familiar to me! It frustrates me a bit when I get to the end of the day and wonder why I didn’t do those little stretches that I KNOW will make things feel better. Or the single set of pushups that may well make it possible for me to do real pushups into my 80s. Or… And this is coming from someone who does plenty – of some stuff. I have ridden my bike thousands of miles & hope to do more. I don’t hesitate to walk 5 or 6 miles. But too often, if I don’t have someone looking over my shoulder, I let it go.
On the other hand, I refuse to let myself lose sleep about this. Gotta keep fitness activities in a place I actually like for them to work well.
I enjoy streaks and think they’re fun but it turns out I’m not that stressed if I fall off the streak wagon. I just start again. Sometimes I think that means I’m missing the “stick” aspect of streak motivation. Mostly I think it’s a good attitude to have.