Small things are the base for bigger ones. A daily habit causes a compound effect. First off, what is a daily habit? A daily habit is a routine that you do every day. It could be good or bad. I think James Clear put it best in his book, Atomic Habits. His quote was “A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.”-James Clear. A compound effect helps with adding something small to your normal routine until you get to your goal. Mrs. Donnelly’s class of 2023-2024 had a daily habit starting on October 24th until the week of December 11th. That is seven weeks! The daily habit for them was to plank for 30 seconds each day for one week. The next week, they added on 15 seconds until  the target of 2 minutes and 15 seconds was reached.

 

Firstly, there were a lot of challenges in doing the plank. We needed to do it every day. If we don’t, we cannot mark it as done on our tracker. Worse, we would lose that daily habit and its compound effect. Another problem that I encountered was that I had some other things to do. I had to prioritize my to-do tasks. Prioritizing is definitely not my strongest point. Some days, I had to plank 5 minutes before sleeping or in the bathroom (great time management). I was also scared that I wouldn’t plank or I would forget to write it down. The former never happened, but the latter did. But, I pulled through, stayed on track, caught up my tracker, and slept happily.

 

Next, I find emotions and mindset to be a major part of success with a daily habit. The emotions I felt were stress, anxiety, relief, and happiness. How did I feel stress? I felt stressed because it was difficult to plank for 2 minutes and 15 seconds or more. I was anxious because I did not know if I could plank every day. Sometimes, my planned schedule may go haywire. I also felt relief. I finished the plank challenge and could finally breathe. The final emotion that I felt was happiness. I finished the plank challenge with double my expectations. I was happy with my performance in the challenge.

 

Well, that was it for the plank challenge! Thank you for reading my blog and feel free to comment on your planking time, challenges that you may have had, and emotions you felt. See you next time!