Almost a Space Bird...

Yup, you heard that right... a Space Bird! What the heck is a space bird? It's... well... it's the virtual equivalent of a gold star... or maybe a platinum star... or titanium. It's a long story but... apparently I am easily motivated by the rather nebulous reward of a virtual gold sticker.

750 Words
Badges

A few years back, I joined the site 750Words... the idea was to write 750 words a day, whatever they might be. It was kind of a spin-off of Julia Cameron's Morning Pages (from her book, The Artist's Way). Except not. Julia Cameron's idea was to write three pages every morning... on paper. If we estimate 250 words/page... we end up with 750 words. But... typing 750 words is not quite the same as writing long hand... or whatever it's called nowadays.

Anyhow... I joined 750 Words and started writing every day... Which is not as easy as it sounds. It takes quite a bit of self-discipline and motivation to sit down every day and just write. It didn't even have to be coherent stuff... just sit down and write. Agh... challenging! So the creators of the 750Words site came up with the idea of Badges... brilliant!!

Every newbie on the site starts off as an Egg. But... write for three days in a row and... you get to be a Turkey!! After 5 days, you get promoted to a Penguin... with a bow-tie no less. This is exciting stuff... seriously. Because... if you miss a day of writing... you go back to being an Egg. Which, honestly, is tragic. Because you are then starting back at Square 1... So there is actually quite a bit of motivation to keep the streak going because once you hit 10 days, you become a Flamingo. And at 30 days, the majestic Albatross.

I can't tell you how many times I got demoted to an egg... it was one of the worst feelings... but, honestly... up to the Albatross... it's not such a big deal, because in 30 days... you're back to being an Albatross... But after that, things get serious. I was stuck at Albatross level for months... I kept going back to being an Egg and have to claw my way back up to 30 days.

750 Words
Badges

The next level after the Albatross is a leap... 100 days of consecutive writing... and then one can level up to the coveted Phoenix. There is some serious motivation going here because one slip-up... one missed day and... boop... it's back to being an Egg.

After that... the next level is 200 days... and a Pterodactyl... It takes a lot of dedication to reach this level. I have to admit... I used a few cheats to make it this far... I'd write a few sentences in the 750Words app and then... copy and paste repeatedly until I hit 750 words. There were just some days where I couldn't gather the oomph to write something even non-coherent! But... any port in a storm.

I was well on my way to being a Pegasus (365 Days) when I logged into the site one day and discovered that... I was an Egg.

WHAT!!!!???

750 Words
Badges

Nooooooo.... this must be a mistake!!!! And then I remembered... I had seen the emailed reminder to write the day before and said "later"... but later never came and... there I was... a lowly Egg again. I have to admit, I snapped. I deleted my account and turned my back on 750Words for good.

I'd never reach the coveted Space Bird level (500 Days)... sigh...

Except... I had been on the site for so long that... those levels are kind of locked in my brain now. And, when I turned my back on my hot chocolate addiction last February... I pulled the 750Words Badges out of my memory banks and used them as motivation. I know... it's weird... but if weird works... go for it!

I used a wall calendar and... while I didn't have Egg, Turkey, Penguin, etc stickers... I found some other stickers that worked... and charted my progress...

I started off with ladybug stickers... then graduated to owl stickers and... finally at 100 days... to cat stickers. I think at 200 days. I graduated to teddy bear stickers... and there I have remained. After 365 days, I had run out of stickers!

But... I am currently at 435 days hot chocolate free (as of April 27) and the 500 Day milestone is approaching and... it's time to dust off the Space Bird. I'm rummaging through my Avery labels looking for some that I can use to cobble together some Space Bird stickers... Except...

In preparation for becoming a Space Bird... and recognizing the 365 Day milestone!

While the Space Bird was the pinnacle of badges four years ago when I left 750Words... I now see that there are other badges! The Flying Squirrel at 1000 days and the Great Griffin at 2000 days. Whoa...

So... while it may seem silly... this little extra boost of motivation keeps me on the straight and narrow with hot chocolate... I have not desire to go back to being an Egg... and hacking my way back up to Albatross, etc.