Showing up- reflections on 1000-day streak of promises to myself

I would describe myself as mom, small business owner, avid reader, Gilmore girls fan, and nature lover.

But a streaker… Nope.

Yet starting a streak didn’t come out of nowhere. 

I've been an avid FitBit converted to iWatch wearer, since 2013, switching in 2019, so I was no stranger to tracking my activity.  (I do love collecting information and evidence.) But usually not being not much more than a casual observer of the daily tallies and not being consistently consistent.  I would have mini streaks when I was committed to a goal or intention,  like following a distance-based training program for a 5k to a marathon.  But with that I was more interested in what my Garmin was tracking for distance and time, not daily fitness activity.

Somewhere along the way, around 2018, I took a deeper interest in self improvement and my own personal growth.  Maybe because I was a newer mom of 2, realizing how much my kids were teaching me about myself, my limits and meeting challenges, providing the nudge to see what else this life experience could teach me.

“You’re not just raising your kids.  Your kids are finishing raising you. ”

— Unknown

I started reading more books (my top 5 for getting started) and listening to podcasts and started feeding my mind some new thoughts, some new possibilities.  And some seeds were being planted.

To really understand what started this streak, let’s jump to Fall, 2019.

One of the podcasts I listened to kept hyping the last 90 days of the year, of the decade, to start preparing yourself for the New Year goals with some good habits, to not let those 3 months just slip by.  I liked the idea of a different kind of goal, focusing on habit building and consistency.  I was late jumping on board, but I decided that on December 1, I would keep a daily promise to myself for the last 31 days of the decade to help me feel focused and that I was setting myself up for success in 2020.

Something about closing out the decade strong felt like something I needed to do.  So, I did, building on a foundation I had already established.

For 31 days, I closed the activity rings on my iWatch (standing, fitness minutes, calorie goal). And it did feel good. 

Then I decided to start the decade strong, and then why not go for 90 days. By that time, I was streaking!  Having a daily commitment to honor to myself was helping me have evidence of my growth and dedication. 

Somewhere in there I decided to go for a 6-month streak, adding stretch goals that kept building upon each other.  And then we all know what happened mid-March 2020.

As the world was losing all sense of normal, I had a sense of purpose I could hold onto.  I had this daily streak to maintain, to preserve a small shred of normal.

Daily Promises

Keeping this daily promise to myself, to move my body in a way I (mostly) enjoy, often out in nature, was a huge buoy to my mental health when I felt like I was drowning in nearly every other aspect of life.

I was growing self-confidence with every day that ticked by, a measurable way to see that I was showing up for myself each day.  That no matter what else was going on, I could trust that I would keep my promise to myself.  My daily walk became a sanctuary of sorts.  Space for my thoughts, to breathe and occasionally cry.

As I got to know the paths near my home, I got to know myself better too. 

As I noticed the changes inspired by Mother Nature, I noticed the small shifts within myself.

As the days sometimes felt too messy, too cold to brave heading out for a walk, yet going anyway, I felt a growing sense of bravery as I headed deeper into myself and the places that felt too messy, too challenging to explore.

And that slowly led to feeling braver to stretch myself in new ways, to dare to ask "what if" and act on some of those dreams.

What started as a commitment to a daily habit to help with momentum for the days ahead, evolved into self-care practice.  My mindset shifted from this being something I have to do, something that should feel like a challenge and a push to be, do and know better into a more gentle daily experience that is a critical element of my mental and physical well-being.

When I started, hitting the daily goal meant trying to nonchalantly stand up during long work meetings to tick off that hour, getting in a sweaty 30-minute workout, hitting a 500 calorie burn goal.  It was full of effort.  It meant organizing my day to fit in this new habit.  It meant power walking the airport at dawn before a flight for work.  It meant jogging in the bathroom at bedtime, trying to hit the daily goal.

What I learned during all those days of efforting was no longer serving me.  Over time, I started to realize that this was MY goal, MY streak. 

I noticed that the real benefits of my daily streak was that I was honoring the space that I needed to decompress, shed other people’s energies and expectations and fill myself up with nature, space to breathe and some quiet to process my own thoughts or listen to a podcast to help me make new connections with my own insights.

It’s where I learned more about-

• other people’s growth journeys for inspiration

• being an enneagram 9 (test)

• shifting into a growth mindset

• fun facts and insights about Gilmore girls (Gilmore Guys podcast)

• diving into being a Human Design Projector (chart)

• living more fully as my true self

• and most recently understanding that I am an HSP, Highly Sensitive Person (Sensitive & Soulful podcast)

The accountability for the goal is still tracked on my watch, but the way I view daily success in keeping the promise to myself has changed.  The chaos and reality of life with 2 kids, a spouse, daily to-dos and until recently, a full-time career on top of starting and growing two businesses required it (RunJoy, Firefly Scout).  The purpose of the daily promise was to show up for myself, to encourage and nurture my own growth and feel a sense of accomplishment over time.  So, the goal has evolved.

I take a look at my mental and physical capacity and decide what will serve me best for the day, week or month.  In this season, it means-

Being flexible about how I fulfill the 30 minutes each day.  It is certainly my preference to get away for a 30+ minute outdoor walk each day, but sometimes that is especially challenging (and only more of a challenge in the short winter days).  So, I’ve set a Minimum Daily Promise (MDP) level for myself.  The minimum is a 15-minute walk, outdoors if safely possible and the rest can be through daily activity, meditation or yoga. 

Knowing that I have this reasonable lower limit of what “counts” helps me stay streaking on the days where life just feels too much while still honoring the intent of my goal.  I’ve learned that some seasons are not meant for giving everything you’ve got, pushing through to exceed challenges. That following through in a way that feels like you’re nudging, stretching yourself just enough while gentle on yourself and honoring your capacity is more than enough. 

Reducing the daily calorie goal rather than the default 500.  This streak is not about losing weight, in fact I weigh virtually the same as when I started.  The results of progress show up in muscle definition, feeling confident in my body and overall conditioning.  I still jog in the bathroom before bed, but I’m more apt to do a mind/body workout instead to help me release the day and connect with my inner self in a different way.

Each week I choose my daily calorie goal for the week.  Noticing my daily average over the prior few weeks and noting what the week ahead looks like, I adjust it.  Depending on my capacity or as a mini-streak stretch goal, I’ll bump it up and notice how the stretch goal feels as I adjust my daily activity and intensity to meet it.  And in weeks where I know my capacity will be maxed out, I lower it.  Since I have my Minimum Daily Promise, I know what it takes for me to meet that and still feel in integrity with maintaining my streak status.

What have I learned?

This streak has helped me have a deeper sense of self-knowledge and put a real sense of trust in myself. Learning that I am intrinsically motivated by following through on something for someone else and not reliably for myself, I knew that the Future Me of Tomorrow would be really mad at Today Me for not fulfilling that daily promise, disappointing Future Me and having to start over again.  Not that I can’t stumble or that starting back at Day 0 would be a bad thing.  But it helped me use the discovery of my people pleasing tendencies for good and recognize what roadblocks were really just excuses and which ones indicated I needed to recalibrate my goal and expectations while still being in integrity with myself.

I'm thankful that I started this streak before I needed it.  By the time COVID hit, I was already 3.5 months in and feeling pretty solid in the habit by then and realizing some of the benefits.  I had already been putting things in my figurative backpack for this personal growth journey and had filled it with resources I knew helped me, such as reasonable voices that I connected with and shared tips for what I needed to hear based on where I was at.  Listening to Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast episode about effing first times (Brené on FFTs) on my walk while every sense of normal helped change my whole perspective about this enormous collective experience we were going through.  When you’ve already experimented and played with what kinds of resources and restorative methods work for you, then you can lean into building daily foundational habits for yourself so you can start to build up your reserves and have them at the ready when unexpected challenges come up.

One thing I realize as I cross 1,000 days is that I wish I had shared more, received support and celebrated more.  I am very much a person who feels I can ‘do it my own self’ and has a tendency to feel like what I’m doing doesn’t matter to anyone else (hello enneagram 9 and HSP tendencies) to the point where I stopped talking about it because it felt a little too braggy, that ‘oh must be nice to have that time to do that every day’.  Or ‘who are you to actually be taking care of yourself and possibly, actually thriving during a global pandemic’.  So, I got pretty quiet about it, only sharing updates on the bigger milestones (1 Year) or hints of it in passing. 

The most significant thing I’ve learned (and still working on) is that I deserve feel proud of what I've done and be visible during the journey. It takes a lot to do this some days.  Some days it's all I have to keep me sane.  Some days it has been a struggle.  And most days it fuels me, empowers me, pushes me to keep growing and becoming all that my soul has planned for me to discover about myself and this human experience.  Going forward, I’m going to celebrate more along the way.   To be more visible on my journey and invite people in to support and cheer me on and to be proud of me, on top of what I already feel for myself.  Because I never know how my journey, my streak could inspire someone else, could inspire you to dare to start something that could end up changing your whole life trajectory by committing to a daily promise to yourself.  And seeing how far it can take you. 

So now what?

We are approaching fall, when school starts back up and routines shift. It's an ideal time to start your own sort of streak of daily promises as you adjust to a new normal anyway. Find a quiet moment and ask yourself where do you need to show up better for yourself in your life. What unmet need is squawking loudly and how you can start to help it feel met? I talked about naming unmet in a previous post and how to listen for them. (Unmet Needs​)

To help you with your own journey, I've got some tips to help you get started with your own promise streak-

• Make it personally meaningful. Pick something that will fulfill something deep within you, for YOU. Something that will help you feel like you are showing up for the best version of yourself in even the smallest of ways each day.

• Commit to when. Picking a date to commit to start that feels meaningful or significant in some way helps add to the importance of starting. Gretchen Rubin talks about it in her Calendar of Catalysts blog post (link).

• Take a breath and just start. Making a daily promise to yourself is a big deal. But you know what, you're beyond worth the confidence that comes with having the evidence that you have your own back. Just start and don't worry when you feel the challenge of being consistent. Repeating Day 1 is better than never leaving Day 0.

• You get to decide what counts. The only one that this promise matters to is you, so you get to decide what counts toward the growth-focused daily promise you set for yourself.

• Integrity matters most. Stay in integrity with yourself though and don't just change the bar because you couldn't show up for yourself that day. Being honest with yourself is better than eroding the trust you are building with lame excuses.

• It will evolve over time. Again, this is a promise to yourself and as you get more consistent with keeping those promises, you are going to grow and change. So the daily promise should evolve as well.

• Celebrate along the way. As you hit milestones (or just because it feels good) be sure to notice and celebrate your growth. Reflect on how you've shifted or changed and become a better version of yourself. (blog)

As I cross over the 1,000-day streak mark, I am feeling more emboldened to really dream big for what I'm setting my sights on next.  All because I started with deciding to commit to a goal that called to me, daring to believe in myself and giving myself the evidence of showing up for myself every dang day.

I didn’t start this streak with the intent to have it last this long.  But starting with the intent to set myself up for future success, by showing up for myself each day, further strengthening my foundation has changed the entire trajectory of my life.  Tangible evidence that I was showing up for my future self every day has instilled a level of self-confidence that I wouldn’t have known otherwise.  So, I’m not focusing on hitting 2,000 days.  Going back to how this all started, I’ll just keep adding stretch goals, small daily steps that keep building upon each other, continuing to grow my self-knowledge and adding to my foundation for wherever this streak takes me.  

How about you?

What foundation do you want to strengthen?  How do you want to show up for yourself each day?  What streak do you want to start?

Use the journal prompt “What daily promise do I most need to start keeping for myself?” and explore this with your inner self. Use it to help point you toward building your own foundation for self-knowledge and personal growth.

One way to start this process is to take a dive into knowing yourself better, seeing all that you bring to the table and start to understand how you want to show up in the world and letting your light glow.  The Firefly Scout Illumination Kit is just the place to start.  It includes foundation building elements to help you start on your own personal growth journey

• daily habits

• introspective journaling

• self-exploration activities

• goal setting

If you feel called to start this journey toward remembering your magic and living a life that lights you up, discover what the Illumination Kit can do for you.

*post may contain affiliate links

---

Stephanie Rose is a mom, wife, business owner and a forever student in finding ways to know herself better. She acts as guide for your own journey, sharing insights, tools and practices to help you remember your magic and live a life that lights you up. Sign up for her newsletter and check out her free resources.

Related entries