Thanks to Mrs. Donnelly for this photo!

Habits are so important for our daily life and we usually follow them without even thinking. That is why adding habits can be really difficult because our brains don’t have the same training and immediate recognition. That is why when my C period language arts class started doing a planking challenge. It was quite the test for some people to remember to plank every day. When we first started plank we talked about a book called Atomic Habits. The author, James Clear says,“Habits are due to the compound interest of self-improvement.” So we decided to use that compound effect so that we could build our planking skills.

We started at a leisurely 30 seconds and did that every day for a week then we added 15 seconds. We built up to 2 minutes and 15 seconds, using that compound effect, before the big challenge. This big challenge was to show us how far we had come in our planking journey. This big challenge that I have been rambling about is when the entire class had to plank for as long as they could and not just a fixed amount of time. Now that I actually wrote that out sounds sort of anticlimactic but it was a really big deal for us because we’re kids so obviously (but not to make assumptions) we love a good competition! 

After this challenge we all came up with a new habit to work with. Mine is to do a stretch every day on both sides for 30 seconds. I chose this habit because when I was in 4th grade I was super flexible and I felt really good. I always felt really energized. I had stopped for a while for a really weird reason which was that we got a new couch. I know that this sounds really confusing but part of what had made me so flexible was that I was always doing handstands up against or near our couch and our new couch just didn’t have the same vibe. I’m really excited about this new habit. Are there any habits that you’d like to add to your routine?