By Dina Aldabbagh

Three years ago, and some change now, I began a daily move streak. That means for three years straight, I have not missed one single day of daily movement. Some days happened without much extra effort outside of my already set plans for the day while other days seemed like I was laboring to no end to reach my move goal. Those latter days hit extra hard when I had in my mind that I would have to start all over again and put in that work tomorrow as well to keep the streak going. Regardless, this became a habit. One way or another, I got it done. What’s interesting is not the award on my Apple Watch that says “X Days and Counting!” keeping me motivated, but rather the way in which my relationship to that reward has changed.

At first, it did begin as a way to keep seeing that award next to a higher number. I actually accidentally came about this award. That summer three years ago, my dad enlisted me in an Apple Watch fitness competition — they last one week. Every time before this, he had challenged me and won. I would be at school and very busy with homework, classes, and clubs, while he had a much more relaxed schedule. This allowed him to surpass me every time. I’d workout, but no matter how much activity I logged, he would make sure to surpass me. Well, this summer three years ago was different — we were on vacation and I had nothing but time. 

The competitive edge in me kicked in and I essentially committed my entire vacation to beating this man in a fitness competition. I was hungry to crush a 60 year old man in a measure of fitness as a 21 year old woman — I know, huge feat. Regardless, every opportunity I had to log more exercise minutes or burn more calories, I took. I’d walk to the beach rather than take the shuttle, I’d swim rather than lay out and tan, I’d be right amongst all the middle aged woman taking the water aerobic classes in the pool, and I even began accompanying my brother on his 6 am lifts just to get ahead of the curve at any opportunity. 

I had done some weight training in high school, but I never loved it. This time around with my brother, something was different. I realized, “Huh, that’s all there is to it? You just move your arms up and down 12 times, then take a break, and do it again? This is kind of easy.” My perspective on exercise changed during this trip. It was no longer something you did to lose weight or look a certain way, but rather something you did to feel good. And man, did it feel good winning that competition against my dad. Spoiler alert! I did. 

We had two back to back competitions lasting a total of two weeks. The first competition was tight, but in the second one I blew him out of the water…the ocean water, that is. It may sound a little obsessive to focus on exercise during vacation — and sure, my competitiveness did push me to a kind of obsession — but I still fully enjoyed my trip. I didn’t miss a dinner with my family, I spent plenty of time enjoying the hotel’s facilities, and I created a lot of memories just being with my people. And yet, still, I had ample time to focus on my own thing. There was plenty of down time to have some of everything. And how interesting now that, after three years, I still remember this trip extremely fondly as a fun and formative turning point in my life. 

During this trip, I received a notification from my Apple Watch’s fitness app informing me that I now had a streak. How the Apple Watch works is you set your own daily move goal of however many calories, and you get a streak when you hit that goal each day without breaking it. Woah. That was new. “I’ve worked out for 14 days straight?” That was a kind of jarring perspective shift. 14 days over: all I remember was having fun, it didn’t feel like work, and yet…I worked out without fail every single one of those days. Huh. 

Well, I let that streak break and didn’t think too deeply about recreating it, but I did continue to workout out slightly less sporadically. In August I went back to school and there I was able to focus more on my exercise regime. Suddenly, the streak was back up. That glorious feeling I felt in July — that was certainly elevated by the sensation of competition being gratified — was back. 

This time I was consciously laboring to keep the streak. For the first time in my life, I consciously felt the power that comes with being disciplined, committing to something, and showing up as the person who can do hard things. And that streak award was my badge of honor. Every day I would have my eye glued to my watch, waiting for my move ring to be closed so that I could see the Move Streak award grow in number. It was the most gratifying feeling to see that number rise. I felt a type of pride in myself unlike anything I’d ever felt before. And what was better? I was hitting my move goal by doing exercises I genuinely enjoyed: playing basketball, walking around the track, swimming, and now lifting. I felt powerful. I loved who I was. I was proud of myself. 

Then one day, 9 days into my streak, I was laying in bed 35 calories short of my goal, so tired. I had a couple hours left in the day and with a gym being literally inside of my apartment building, just downstairs, I certainly could have hit that goal with ease — but I didn’t get up out of bed. I let the streak end. I watched 12 am come, and my streak go. The next day, I felt a kind of disappointment in myself that was inexplicable. It was perhaps a mix of pain and shame. You see, it wasn’t the pain of not being enough, it was the pain of knowing I had everything in me to do it, and I chose not to. 

“All you had to do was go downstairs and walk for a little bit on the treadmill and you would still have a streak today…” It was me looking at myself and genuinely asking, “Could you really not get out of bed?” I wanted this streak — was staying in bed for those 35 calories really worth it? Was last night’s comfort worth losing out on something I genuinely wanted? What felt worst was that I felt like I lost my progress. That I had put in all this work and yet didn’t have anything to show for it. 

This set a fire inside of me like no other. It was kind of ineffable. I just knew now that no momentary comfort was worth me not being able to be proud of myself. It seems like a simple thing — a streak on your watch — but it meant more to me. It was like a confirmation that I am the kind of person I knew I was. Deciding to let it break was like saying, “No, that’s not who I am.” Like: “No, I’m the kind of person who is only sometimes proud of herself.” A simple thing, sure, felt very deep for me. It felt cutting. It felt like a moment of: “Who are you? Who are you going to be?” Losing the thing you’ve been working towards — being so close to it, and letting it slip just for a momentary comfort that you can later recognize was not at all worth it…that’ll shock you into place. 

And so it did. Those next 10 days, I had something to prove — to myself, that is. I was going to get my streak back. I was going to erase my past and get that day 10 that I lost before. Every day, I was like a bit of a mad-woman; my number one priority was to get my streak back. Those first three days — which is how long the Apple Watch takes to recognize a streak before they give you the award — were tough. I didn’t get to see any award, I just had to effectively put my head down and know I would see it soon. 

That’s the thing about starting back at ground zero, you feel a kind of despair. It feels like there’s a lot of pressure on this moment to claw your way out of the pit or else you risk staying there forever. That was subliminally my fear. If I didn’t turn this streak around right now, I’d forever be the kind of person who was inconsistent with her health. Obviously, I made it much deeper than it actually was, but in that moment, it did feel that deep to me. Essentially, I was insecure. I didn’t have enough evidence in my life to recognize that one off-day wasn’t a prophecy — so this did feel like the moment of judgement. “Who will you be?” — not just, “Who are you today?” It felt big — colossal. It felt like I was standing in front of something much, much larger than me, and it was a deciding moment in my life. 

So I poured myself into it. Every day this mattered to me more than homework or clubs or trying to develop relationships. I still had time for everything else, but nothing at the cost of me not working out. Eventually I got that day 10 that I had so shamefully squandered before. I was back. Then, every day I was reaching a height I had never before. I didn’t know how long it would last, but I just wanted to see another day. Mind you, throughout this process of working out, hitting my goal, and logging a new day in the PR, I would think to myself, “This would be +10 if I didn’t break it that one day.” That shame stuck with me for a while. Not in the way where I reprimanded myself daily, but in the way where it gave me perspective. I would be further along if I had just kept going before. I was utterly committed to not feeling that way again.

Now, three years later, I don’t even look or care about the number. What matters to me is that I just keep the streak going. I think in a sense, I’m always holding that failed day 10 close to my heart, and knowing, “I never want to feel like that again.” 

My goal was not to get to three years, my goal was to not break the streak. Every single day that comes, I use that one day of day 10 of that streak as a reference point and I tell myself, “Just don’t break it today.” I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to keep going with this, but every day I say to myself, “Just don’t let today be the day you break the streak.”

It’s not this great, grand thing of keeping the streak going every day for the rest of my life. I really can’t make it about the rest of my life — I can only make it about today. And I don’t know if I can keep this streak going for another three years or even another year really, I guess. I don’t know what could happen in my lifetime. But I do have today, and I do know what today looks like, and I do know what I have in me today. So for today and today only, I can say for certain I’m not gonna let this break.

Three years in, and while I’m proud of myself, this didn’t actually feel like much of a milestone. Actually, I missed the three-year mark by 10 days. I realized this month, “Wait, don’t I hit the year mark in September for my move streak?” When I went to check it, I was at 1,105 days — three years equating to 1,095 days. 

This was a very interesting contrast to see as I remember my one-year mark. At some point in that first year after getting my streak back, I realized, “Wait, I can make it to a year.” As I mentioned, I didn’t have a goal in my head on what destination I wanted to get to with this award. I was essentially trying to just evade failure. But I got to somewhere like 200 or something days and I realized…“I’m closer to a year streak than I am to the start.” 

At that point, the habit was ingrained. I knew every day I would be moving my body in some way, the question was just how and when. So the one-year mark was a huge milestone for me. I was eagerly counting down the days, feeling the growing power inside as every day inched me towards 365. I felt huge when I saw that 365. At this point, I was undoubtedly no longer the same girl who let the streak break that one devastating day 10. 

From that point on, I kept the streak going, of course. Hitting my move goal essentially became my north star, but I stopped checking the award daily. While I used to eagerly look forward to closing my move ring so I could see that award increase, I genuinely just stopped caring. It was no longer about a number. It was no longer about proving something to myself. It was just about continuing to be who I loved to be. And I would check in sporadically to see where I was at with the streak, but I was no longer tracking it. That number stopped being the metric for my success. It eventually shifted to just completing the action of exercising to the enclosure of my move ring. 

So while three years straight is a huge feat, and I am proud of myself, it doesn’t feel that big. The award I get is daily, but it’s in how I feel, not in a number on my Apple Watch.  

I couldn’t have ever imagined during that vacation three summers ago that it would turn into this, and the secret is: I wasn’t supposed to. Looking ahead three years down the road on every hard thing you’re doing is too much. It feels too big, and it pushes us to find safety in just stopping altogether so that we don’t commit to a lifetime of effort or risk the shame of failure. I’ve heard it said that you only ever wash one dish at a time. Sure, the act of washing dishes is typically everyone’s least favorite activity, especially when you see a pile, but the key is that you’re not washing twenty dishes at once. In every moment, you just wash one dish. One dish at a time, and then suddenly, the sink is clear. 

To say right now that you can commit to burning a certain amount of calories at a minimum for the next three years without fail is way too big. That’s a goliath. You cannot commit to that right now. At least, not for certain. Things happen, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. But you do have today. And you do know what today looks like. And you do know what you’ve got in you today. And so for today and today only, don’t let the streak end. For just today, wash one dish.