When Habits Become Pressure
March 19, 2026
For a long time I tracked everything. Workouts, running, streaks, calories, even the way I thought about progress. At first, tracking helped. It gave me structure, discipline, and a way to stay consistent. But over time, some of those habits stopped feeling healthy and started feeling like pressure. A running streak that lasted more than 800 days. Metrics at work. Even financial goals. This video is a reflection on where tracking helps, where it quietly takes over, and what happens when a habit stops being something you measure and just becomes part of your life.
Transcript
00:00 – Opening: Tracking Everything
Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.
For a long time, I tracked everything.
Workouts, running, swimming — you name it, I tracked it. I had spreadsheets that laid out the entire year for me. Weekly goals, yearly totals, everything broken down right to the day, the type, and the total.
At the time, it felt very organized. It felt very disciplined, and honestly it gave me a lot of pride to look back on it.
But after so many years of doing it, I can see now that it might have been a little more intense than it needed to be.
I probably should have picked up on the cues earlier. A lot of friends would start out excited and interested, but eventually it became more like, "What number is he at now?"
And tracking usually starts from a good place.
You want to improve something.
Health. Discipline. Consistency.
01:00 – Why Tracking Works at First
So you create a system.
You track workouts.
You track distance.
You track calories.
For me, it turned into spreadsheets that covered the entire year.
Each week had targets, and those weekly targets added up to yearly goals. And honestly, for a while, that worked really, really well.
It kept me honest. It kept me on point.
It helped me on those days when I was too tired or didn't want to do it, because it created structure for me and kept things moving even when I didn't want to.
01:33 – The Running Streak
With running, that eventually turned into something more obsessive.
It became a streak.
The idea was simple: see how many days in a row I could run 5K.
I picked 5K because it felt manageable. I thought about doing 10K, but that's a lot more time and effort, so 5K felt like the right number.
It wasn't anything extreme. The idea was just to see how consistent I could be.
And once it started, I noticed something very interesting.
I stopped thinking about the run itself… and started thinking about the number.
Thirty days became a month.
Then six months.
Then a year.
And once you hit a year, you start thinking, well, maybe I can make it to two years.
At some point I stopped really checking the exact number, but I know it went past 800 days. I'm not even sure if it was 814 or 820, but it was over 800 days in a row.
Which sounds impressive.
But streaks and habits and tracking like that can very quickly start controlling your day, your time, and everything around you.
03:14 – When the Habit Became Pressure
The run itself wasn't the problem.
The pressure around the streak became the problem.
Vacations became tricky.
Evenings revolved around making sure the run got done.
If I missed it in the morning, then I had to think through the rest of the day.
Do I still have time to get it in?
Can I do it before bed and still cool down?
I can't do it right after I eat.
If we go for a walk, will I still have time afterward?
Sometimes I'd be thinking about it all day.
I should've done it this morning.
I can't break this streak.
And something that started as a healthy habit — something that was meant to help me get in better shape, burn calories, keep my legs moving, help my breathing and lung capacity — slowly turned into an obligation.
04:25 – Tracking Shows Up in Other Parts of Life Too
And when you start thinking about streaks and tracking like that, I realized the same thing happens in other parts of life too.
I noticed it at work.
In software development, there are a lot of things you can track.
Support tickets.
How long tickets stay open.
How many days it takes to respond to an email.
How many bugs you fixed.
How many bugs were in your latest feature.
How many features you pushed out.
On the surface, all of that sounds reasonable.
But if you're not careful, those numbers become the goal.
You start optimizing your workload for the metrics instead of the work itself.
You want to close more tickets.
You want to do more small tasks.
You want to get bigger numbers.
So you start taking on the little things you know you can do quickly. You find ways to break one thing into many so you can say you got three done instead of one.
One place that kind of tracking can help is when you're releasing a new feature. You really don't want a lot of bugs associated with it, so you spend more time making sure the code is solid and the bug count stays low.
But still, you can see how easy it is for the metric to become the focus.
06:04 – Where Tracking Can Actually Help
There are definitely places where tracking makes a lot of sense though.
Investing is a good example.
This channel talks about money and investing a lot, and it's something I'm really passionate about.
Maybe your goal is to put away $200 a month.
Just a simple Wealthy Barber style rule — pay yourself first.
Or maybe you split it up differently.
$100 here.
$50 there.
$50 somewhere else.
Maybe you want to max out your TFSA for the year.
Maybe you want to use all your RRSP contribution room.
Those kinds of targets can be healthy because they help future you. They help with refunds. They help take pressure off later in life.
They're really about consistency over time.
07:10 – When Even Healthy Targets Go Too Far
But even there, those numbers can take over if you're not careful.
Say your salary goes up, so now your RRSP contribution room is bigger than it used to be.
In theory, you might think: I make more money now, I should keep living the same way and put the rest toward that goal.
And sometimes that makes sense.
But life isn't that simple.
Maybe your family is growing and you need a bigger car.
Maybe your kids are getting older and going off to school and you want to help them.
Maybe other things come up.
That's life.
And even with investing, the numbers can become unhealthy if they start controlling your decisions.
For example, if you take out an RRSP catch-up loan just to hit your contribution room, but then don't pay that loan off properly, was it really worth it?
If you start ignoring responsibilities just so you can check a box and say you hit the number this year, then the metric is controlling the decision.
Life doesn't move in a perfect spreadsheet.
For us, I put a lot of value on taking trips.
So if it comes down to maxing out the RRSP for both my wife and me, or taking a Christmas trip with the family, I'll take the trip.
I know that's not the most optimized thing on paper, but I'll take the trip.
The same goes for kids needing something.
Or home repairs.
Or car repairs.
Sometimes you can't check the box on the spreadsheet, but you still need to feel good about yourself because you put your priorities in the right place.
And that matters too.
10:08 – The Streak Broke
That brings me back to the running streak.
It broke this Christmas.
We took a Christmas trip.
When you've got a 5 a.m. flight to Mexico from the east side of Canada, and you land and start the day, there's just no realistic way to get the run in.
And obviously my family would've been pretty upset if I tried to force it.
I did manage to get runs in on the trip, but they happened naturally in the day.
Still, I have to be honest — that very first day when I didn't do the run, I was itching to go do it.
But I knew if I did, there would be different consequences.
So I decided I was better off just dealing with the feeling myself and skipping it.
And when you've done something for hundreds of days in a row, breaking it feels big.
It feels like something in your life just stopped.
11:18 – The Pressure Went Away, But the Habit Stayed
But then something interesting happened.
As the pressure started to go away, I noticed the habit stayed.
Even on the second day, I found myself going for a run naturally.
Everyone was getting ready. I was already ready. Or maybe I wanted to go check something out outside.
And I'd think, I know how to do a quick 5K. It's not a big deal. I can fit it in. Quick shower and I'm good to go.
So I started realizing there was no pressure to do it anymore.
But I kept finding these little opportunities where it fit.
And my body wanted to do it.
The habit stayed with me.
12:06 – It's Not Tracked Anymore, It's Just Part of Life
These days I don't really track it anymore.
I stopped tracking my runs.
I stopped tracking my workouts.
I still do them.
I have schedules in my head. My body kind of knows when it's time.
I've actually started running every day again, but not because I'm tracking it.
It's just a custom now.
And I really prefer running in the evenings.
There are no spreadsheets.
No streaks.
No idea what number I'm at.
It just happens as the day goes on.
And I've learned that running helps me sleep better.
I know that sounds weird, but I think it's the whole process.
Getting the blood going.
Having the shower afterward.
Then that cool-down period where I'm relaxing and watching TV.
Sometimes if there's something nagging at me, or something I want to think through, the run helps with that too.
It helps calm the day down.
On weekends I'll run in the mornings because I like doing longer runs then. But in the evenings they're usually smaller.
Now my body is just so used to it that it wants to do it.
So it stopped being a habit that I'm tracking…
and it just became something I do.
13:31 – The Rhythm of the Day
I'm not chasing numbers anymore.
I'm just following the rhythm of the day and how I feel.
With work, I know what I need to get done and when I need to get it done.
I take a lot more time now. I'm less worried about how much stuff I'm pushing out, and more worried about the quality of the work I'm doing and improving the system for users.
With meals, I still track sometimes — not every day, but if I've had a big breakfast or we went out for lunch or something like that, I like having a rough idea because those are the days I'm less sure what the numbers are.
And I love ice cream, cake, and chips, so I do want to make sure I'm not overdoing it. Because if you do that every day, it adds up.
But in the evenings is where it really comes back into place for me.
That's when the day is winding down.
That's when my body naturally kind of says, okay, you should go for a run now. It'll feel good. Get a little sweat on, clear your head, get a shower, then watch TV and go to sleep.
It's the perfect rhythm.
15:00 – Closing Reflection
So after spending so much time doing something and tracking it, I've realized that eventually it's not really a habit anymore.
By not tracking it, it takes away the unhealthy obsession.
And now it just becomes part of the rhythm of your life and part of who you are.
That's really the shift I've noticed — when tracking and systems move from being helpful tools into something deeper.
I still bite my nails though. I haven't solved that one.
But I'd love to know if other people deal with this too.
Do you ever become a little obsessed and go a little too far?
Or are you trying to add something to your life — journaling, devotions, meal tracking, workouts, meditation, breathing, anything like that — and it's not sticking?
Maybe it's not sticking because you're not tracking it.
Or maybe you've done it for so long now that it's just part of your life.
I'd love to know how other people deal with trying to add habits to their life.
How do you try to change your lifestyle?
Or are you forced to change it?
Leave some comments.
Thanks for watching.