Today, I didn’t feel like writing. Not only did I feel tired and uninspired, but I also had a mountain of deadlines catching up to me.

Taking just one day off would have been easy to rationalize, except for the fact that I had built up a 78-day streak. The idea of breaking that streak was more painful than the pain of writing.

#Streaks are powerful. They’re tough to build but effortless to break. The idea of breaking a streak triggers our cognitive bias of loss aversion, which helps us to stay accountable.

If something matters to you, don’t just do it every day. Count how many days you’ve been doing it.