First things first: 
I didn’t break the chain, but made my daily walk every single day for the last 16 days. I am so proud of myself! I know it is very early in this challenge, but without committing myself to it, I probably would have walked just 9 days out of 16. There was a lot going on in my life.
Goal Setting and Actual Planning Are Key
For starters, I just focused on walking daily, not on duration, or beautiful, new trails.
Half of my walks were non-exciting walks around the block… But if I wouldn’t have blocked time in my agenda beforehand, thanks to new Sunday week planning sessions, these walks definitely would not have happened. 
Keeping Myself Accountable on Instagram also Helps
Nothing fancy here, I simply make a picture while walking.
Sometimes this is a dull picture in my street during a ‘6000-steps-around-the-same-block-urban-hike’ , other days the picture is a little more appealing because I hiked 12000 steps on a sunny beach before breakfast.
The point is: it isn’t about the pictures. I use Instagram as a Habit Builder.
Public sharing of my progress helps me. I happen to be one of these people who go well on external measurement of my successes and failures. Since I know this, I use it to my advantage.
Our Brain Loves Habit Trackers
Every time we can check off our goal for the day we get a small shot of dopamine.
I have several habit trackers, all offline, that I check off with a colorful marker if the goal for the day is completed.
My current healthy habit trackers are:
- My daily hike
- 7 hours of sleep
- 2 pieces of fruit and at least 250 grams of vegetables
- minimum 2 times a week weight training
- at least 3 times a week meditation
I also have some financial habit trackers
- monthly savings
- monthly investing
- monthly pay off of my mortgages
Plenty of opportunities for a dopamine shot during the day 😉
Visualize your Progress for Better Results
You can do this the oldfashioned way, with markers and a piece of paper on the fridge or above your desk, like I do.
Or you can track your progress online. There is plenty of choice in free online habit trackers. For Example:
Your Turn: How do You Keep Yourself on Track?
Do you use a habit tracker?
Does public sharing of your goals, your progress and pitfalls help you or hinder you?
I would love to hear from you – I still have a long way to go, so tips are welcome!
First of all, congratulations on making it through the first 2 weeks. 2 more weeks and you’ll be right on your way. <3
Like you, I use several habit trackers.
I post pictures of my walks on one of my Instagram accounts and I post my creative stuff on another and number it (179/365). Numbering this way is a great method to track progress, isn't it? It's what you do with your walks. Very effective.
In my journal, I have a page with lines of little open circles. At the left side of that line, I write what I want to focus on that month, and if I have done that activity I colour the circle green. It's a bit hard to explain in just words but you can see a detail of such a page here: https://nogeraniums.com/2018-10-21/
Some other trackers are the daily email I get from my writing coach and the warning on my phone that my online Spanish and French lessons are waiting for me.
Phew, if I write it down this way, it seems like a lot. It's not that bad in reality. 🙂
Thanks for sharing a link to your actual habittracker, with your guidance I can tweak my own trackers a little bit.
I completely forgot about the diagram, but will reintroduce it!
Also forgot to mention that I have an online habit tracker for learning Portuguese also… maybe because I stopped my language learning routine while I was in Thailand and Indonesia – it was just too confusing. After returning home, I didn’t pick it up. This weekend I finally started again….
I totally understand the confusing bit when we learn a language in a country where nobody speaks that language. I quit my routine too for a while when I was in Portugal.
Still, to try things differently, I started French (a week ago, LOL, so it’s only recently) because I confuse Spanish and French a lot and I want to know if I’ll do better when I can speak both languages better. 🙂