Pasa Tiempos

We are a little over two weeks into 2026, is it still socially acceptable to greet everyone with a Happy New Year? I don’t know, but I’m still doing it. Heck, there are some people with Christmas decorations still up! I’m actually headed to my brother’s house later today to help him and my SIL take down their ginormous tree, so I think a little enthusiastic greeting is fine.

Anyway, in the spirit of a new year, new me (just kidding, not doing that this year) I want to talk about resolutions. For the past couple of years there has been so much hype around habit tracking. Unless you’ve been living in a cave away from society (which honestly sounds quite lovely, perhaps), I am sure you’ve heard of habit tracking, or seen it, or maybe even tried some version of it (or 4 or 5 like me). These tend to look like color-coded grids so you can check off when you complete a habit you are tracking, aesthetically pleasing planners with stickers and matching markers, and of course in this digital world, the endless apps to help you track every breath you take and glass of water you drink throughout the day.

TBH, although I love to try new things and absolutely love things that are evidence-based, which habit tracking definitely is…it’s all quite overwhelming for an aspiring snail girl baddie like me. I want to have good habits for longevity’s sake and also for my sanity and to feed my creative soul, but I don’t want to feel like I am policing or auditing myself like my own personal life accountant. I’ve tried that and it is just awful. Don’t get me wrong, it feels awesome to set up the app or the planner or the grids, to select the color marker or sticker you will use once you accomplish something, to actually accomplish something and get to put your gold star up for the world (or my husband and dogs) to see. It all feels GREAT, like I am a new person. The dopamine surge from doing all of that is glorious, especially when you see a streak of stickers or checkmarks! Or like in Duolingo, when that owl is telling you you’re on fire with your 7 day streak!

If you are one of those people who can keep up with these systems every day, and it works for you, that is AWESOME! Go you! But for me, that lasts a maximum of about… 1 month, if the system is a good system, some have lasted WAY less. And it’s because even though it starts off feeling novel and fun, life is busy and it eventually starts feeling like a chore for me to open up that app every day or have to go to a physical location in my home to put the stickers or checkmarks in the boxes. It’s just more cognitive load and more work. And I already work a lot. I’m sure I am not the only one that feels this way.

AND to add to that, like I said in my 1st blog post, I am a recovering perfectionist, which means I tend to be hard on myself already. I am known to set arbitrary standards for my performance and then become the mean boss with myself when I don’t meet those standards. And TRUST, it does not feel good to do that to yourself as you are trying to do things that are meant to make you feel better. I spent that last few months of 2025 in a dark, unkind spiral with myself. It was tough. I do not want 2026 to feel like that for me or for you! So, if in any way you relate to what I am rambling on about, I’d love to share what I am trying this year.

I have turned to a more gentle way to remind me to do things I want to do, that allows me to track habits on a daily basis, without giving myself a monthly report card. I am talking about habit bracelets! Or you know, just bracelets that I am using for this purpose, so you can do it too! It can be bracelets, scrunchies, rings, paper clips, whatever. And there is some research behind this!

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear shares a story of a Canadian stockbroker, Trent Dyrsmid, who at 23 years old became extremely successful in his field. He was a rookie working in a small suburb away from where the big business happened in Vancouver so the odds were certainly against him. How did he become so successful? I’m sure some of it had to do with skill and maybe a dash of luck, but he also cultivated a daily habit that helped him stay on track. He used paper clips to track and to remind himself to make a certain number of calls every day, 120 to be exact. He had 2 jars on his desk and would start with 120 paper clips in one jar. Every time he made a call, he moved a paper clip to the other jar, until all the paper clips were in the 2nd jar.

What I love about this is how analog it is (I mean it was 1993, so his options were limited, but there is just something nice about a tangible thing like a paperclip, or a bracelet!) and how it was about having a visual reminder of something you want to, every day, exactly where you need to see it. The research on building habits that stick shows that visual cues are some of the most powerful ways to effectively build habits. Visual cues serve as a reminder to start your behavior, which is sometimes the hardest part.

For me wearing the bracelets provides me with a nice little reminder, that’s all. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry so I had to purchase some bracelets and ended up buying this bracelet stack from Pura Vida. They are a B certified business (so they meet pretty high social and environmental ethical standards, and they partner with Costa Rican artisans, which I love because I was born in San Jose, CR). It’s a nice bonus that they are cute and practical too. I can put them on and take them off without help (unlike the bracelets I got for my hubby, whoops, sorry about that!). Each bracelet is different, so I have given each a different purpose: 1 for flossing my teeth (my dentist will be so proud), another for doing yoga or stretching, one for writing, and one for practicing drums (maybe I will share more about learning to play the drums in a separate blog post, it’s been so fun!). Anyways, these are all things I want to do more of. They make me feel good. They keep me sane. They keep me healthy and creative…but they also take effort that I don’t always have the motivation for.

So the bracelets serve as a gentle reminder that I want to do these things. I am not setting time limits, or tracking consistency. I just want the bracelets to be there to say “hey, you’re tired and don’t want to think about what activity to do after work, maybe instead of or before rotting on the couch and watching TV, you could play some drums!”

So let’s say I do end up drumming for 10 minutes, then I move that bracelet from my right wrist to my left, to signal I have done the thing. I still get the little dopamine hit when I move the bracelet over. I still get the visual cue making me feel accomplished, but I can’t be hard on myself for how last week went, because I have no record of it.

This year, I am treating each day like a fresh day. If I miss a day of yoga or flossing my teeth, no biggie. I didn’t break a month-long streak and now feel terrible. I just pick it back up the next day. And some days, I don’t get to move all my bracelets. Again, that’s fine. I take them all off before bed and start fresh in the morning.

This is my attempt at building positive habits, having some accountability built in, but trying to do it in a more mindful, gentler, and kinder way so that the habits make me feel good and not like I fail if I don’t have the capacity to complete them each day.

I hope you will also be kind to yourself this year, even if your resolution is to be a high-powered, money-making, bad-ass instead of trying to slow down a little. So happy new year! We got this!