My habit tracker turned into a guilt trap after 3 months

I started bullet journaling in January to track my reading goals. By March, my monthly habit tracker had way too many boxes showing skipped days. I thought the dots would motivate me, but instead I felt bad every time I opened the notebook. Turns out, tracking 8 habits at once was just too much for someone with a busy work schedule. I learned I should stick to 2 or 3 things max and let the rest slide. Has anyone else had their own system backfire like this?

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wesleybutler5mo ago

Yeah, that "too many boxes showing skipped days" thing hit home for me. I had the same problem until I dropped to just 3 habits and stopped tracking stuff that felt like a chore.

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wood.noah5mo ago

@wesleybutler that's exactly what I wrestled with too. what did you end up cutting out that made the biggest difference? for me it was dropping "read for 20 minutes" because that turned reading into a chore instead of something i actually wanted to do. now i just have "drink two glasses of water before coffee" and "walk 10 minutes outside" and "do one small stretch" and the whole thing feels way less punishing when i miss a day.

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