Ah, the habit tracker…many of you have heard of them, many of you use them. The daily ones usually consist of a gazillion squares that you color in every time you complete a task. I’ve used some pre-printed ones and have even drawn my own in my daily planner. I pick 4 or 5 daily tasks I want to accomplish (take my vitamins, drink water, exercise, etc….), and when I complete the task, I color in the square. It’s so satisfying, until it’s not. I start the week off strong, coloring in every square on day 1. By day 2 and 3, I miss one or two here and there. By day 4, I almost have more empty squares than colored squares. By day 5 I’ve given up completely and decide to start fresh the following week. And then the cycle repeats itself. Clearly the traditional habit tracker is not working for me.
But hope is not all lost. In the past I have succeeded at drinking celery juice every day for 30 days, walking a mile a day for 30 days, and intermittent fasting for 30 days. So it seems that if I just pick ONE goal a day instead of 4 or 5, my success rate is high and my failure rate is low. Which is why I have created my own goal tracker for January which I will share with you if you want to try it (scroll down for free downloadable PDF!).
The idea is to pick just one goal you’d like to accomplish every day. It can be as easy or as challenging as you want. If just getting out of bed is hard for you now, then by all means, make that your goal. Then whenever you complete that goal, color in one of the 31 snowflakes anywhere on the page. The awesome thing is, if you miss a day, it won’t be as noticeable and discouraging as traditional habit trackers since you are coloring the snowflakes at random. It won’t be until the end of the month that you will really see how many days you have missed. But even if you miss 5 days, once the month is over, you may see five empty snowflakes but you will also see 26 other days of accomplishment on the page. And then the hope is that at the end of the month, that goal really has become a habit and we can move on to goal #2 in February. In 12 months, we could have 12 new, healthy habits worked into our lifestyle!
So what is my daily goal for January? I have been way more sedentary than I’d like lately. It’s not unusual these days for me to sit down at my laptop in the morning and hardly move all day long, aside from walking to the kitchen or bathroom. It’s BAD and it shows. I have zero energy and motivation. My clothes are getting tight and I just feel overall lazy. So my January goal is to move for at least 30 minutes a day. It can be a walk, an easy Peloton ride, stretching, yoga or weight training, really just anything other than sitting at my desk! I’m not going to be picky at this point. 🙂 I just need to get in the habit of moving again. I may not color every snowflake, but I think if I just focus on this one thing in January, I will accomplish more than I have in the past.
So if you’re looking to make some changes, try this easy, therapeutic (coloring is therapy!) goal tracker and let’s work together slowly to gain some healthy habits in 2022!
Stay Healthy!
Download our January Goal Tracker here: