What is a 3 Sticker Day?

When my husband and I first started using the Sticker the Habit system, things got…let’s just say competitive.

We weren’t trying to outdo each other (okay, maybe a little), but we both wanted to rack up more consistent “3 sticker days”, those glorious days when you nail all three of your habits:

🟢 your start habit (the thing you’re building)
🔵 your keep doing habit (the thing you’re maintaining)
🔴 your stop habit (the one you’re trying to quit)

When you hit all three, you get the full color combo: green, blue, and red. And when you start seeing those colors line up across the calendar? Instant dopamine hit (no technology required!).

Naturally, we turned it into a game.

How the 3 sticker day challenge works

Each month, we’d tally up how many 3 sticker days we earned. Whoever had the most won a prize. Sometimes a dinner out, sometimes just bragging rights (and maybe a dramatic bowing down from the loser 😛).

This became a fun way to keep ourselves on track.

If one of us had a red sticker for “no sweets,” the other might start poking fun around 8 pm and ask if we should go out for ice cream.

Cruel and unusual? Maybe a little.

Effective? Abso-friggin-lutely!

It became a way to keep us firmly grounded in the habits we’re seeking to change. Isn’t it always the case that someone else telling us we can’t do something virtually ensures our success?

Over time, even our friends started to catch on. If someone offered us a drink and we said, “Can’t tonight, I’m on track for a 3-sticker day,” they knew exactly what we meant.

Having the “out” of blaming our Sticker the Habit calendar made it so much easier to stick to our guns in social situations or any time we were tempted to stray from the habits we really wanted to change.

Want to try the 3 sticker day competition?

Here are a few ideas for prizes to make your own 3 sticker day challenge more fun:

• The loser has to donate a set amount of money to the winner’s charity of choice.

• The loser has to prepare a meal of the winner’s choosing.

• The winner gets king or queen for the day status and gets to choose an activity that everyone has to participate in.

Grab a partner, roommate, or friend and challenge each other to see who can rack up the most 3-sticker days this month. Be sure to text each other reminders, encouragement, or a little playful trash talk.

Because sticking with your habits doesn’t have to be boring, it can actually be fun.