Use the Streak to Take Daily Small Steps Towards Healing and Growth
One question we often ask is: how can we make it easier for people to heal and grow?
For example, anonymously chatting with a volunteer listener is easier than going to see a therapist in an office because it removes a lot of obstacles and makes things less threatening. You can do it from your phone or computer, there is no paperwork to fill out, no diagnosis and no cost to the service. Removing these barriers makes it much easier for people to seek help.
In terms of growth, one area where we didn’t do great was with the streak. For those unfamiliar, a streak refers to a consecutive sequence of an activity or engagement. For the last several years the streak was tied to taking actual steps on your growth path. Growth path steps can sometimes feel challenging. Most of them are less than 1-2 minutes to complete, but they can feel a little bit like homework in therapy. Well, good news, we’ve now updated the streak so that visiting the site and doing anything on the site will contribute to your streak.
Why did we make this change?
We made it because even passively reading the feed, sending a message and saying hello to a friend, or hearting a comment is a step towards healing and growth. We were shortchanging ourselves by only counting steps that were more difficult in the past.
And, as we all know, small steps compound day over day, week over week, and year over year and that is how we grow stronger. I’m now on Day 6 of my streak and it feels great. I feel like I’m getting credit for the work I’ve been doing. Work that I didn’t see before and was not able to share with others. Here is a quote I like:
“There is always a step small enough from where we are to get us to where we want to be. If we take that small step, there's always another we can take, and eventually a goal thought to be too far to reach becomes achievable.” - Ellen Langer
The streak is represented by a pink lightning bolt. You can see it on the website on your dashboard , by hovering on another user’s profile icon or by visiting profile pages. It will soon be added to the app too. Let me know what you think of the streak below and if you have any ideas on how we might be able to better use this in group in sub-communities or in other parts of the site. Thank you!
@GlenM
Interesting read. I like that y'all took the time to think and consider other options that can tie into growth here at 7 Cups. It is more than just a growth step on the path. Interacting with each other through messages and even sending a heart like you mentioned. People really love giving and receiving hearts because it feels good to be acknowledged and appreciated in the rooms.
For the subcommunities, I think it would be cool if upvoting a forum thread or comment added to the streak. When you upvote, you express support or agreement with what someone says, similar to hearting someone's message in a chatroom. I see it as an opportunity to make people eager to spend time in the forums.
One of my favorite quotes: The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. - Nathaniel Branden
@Jenna
I love this quote, Jenna and your suggestions are wonderful!💖
Compassion-hearts in chatrooms, personal messages and forums really are powerful ways to acknowledge someone, make them feel heard and supported without even making much effort (although I do have some feedback on this xD the compassion hearts are a lot more difficult to click on for messages in chatrooms and personal messages after the update~ specially on a mobile device, it takes several clicks to get a heart register, not sure if others are experiencing this too). :O
I love this encouraging post for upvoting forum posts~ https://www.7cups.com/forum/7cupsleadership/SubcommunitiesInformation_2314/Thevalueofforumupvotes_24368/
It makes a lot of difference fosho!💖
@Jenna love that quote and hadn't heard it before. So true! I think that is a good way of summarizing acceptance and commitment therapy.
Hearts should count towards streaks. If you try it and it doesn't work, then please let me know!
What do you think of there being a sort of cumulative streak or heart tally on a sub-community basis? We'd have to get smart about it to account for different size sub-communities, but idea would be to have a sort of healing/growth/compassion meter that would as a sort of expression of the sub-community as a whole? You can tell I'm struggling with this idea so any insights here would be helpful :)
@GlenM
To be honest, lately, a lot of updates have been a downer for me personally. But this recent one about streaks has been a silver lining, in a way, restoring some more faith here and I'm very appreciative of the thoughtfulness behind incorporating more ways to let people acknowledge their "growth" in 7 cups in a quantifiable way also! 😃
Allowing people to interact more in/with the community *and* be able to see their streak increasing while they are it. Very well-thought of, thankyou for the announcement and a bigger thank you to the team working towards the betterment of the site and its users. Appreciate y'all always! 💖
As for suggestions,
I feel there could be different "sections"~ (to name some): Chatrooms, Forums, Listener-Listener interaction, Listener-Member interaction, Leadership Roles etc to be able to add more concrete ways of showing community-participation in each one of them.
I have a question: Is there a list of all the activities we can engage in to build our streak? Perhaps something to add to the "listener/ member reputation" page, if not already! What do you think?💖
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou thanks for sharing :)
Can you share or unpack more of what you mean below? I like this idea a lot, but am not sure how we'd implement it. Any ideas would be very welcome!
I feel there could be different "sections"~ (to name some): Chatrooms, Forums, Listener-Listener interaction, Listener-Member interaction, Leadership Roles etc to be able to add more concrete ways of showing community-participation in each one of them.
Pretty much any behavior on the site now impacts the streak, so I think we are covered there.
@GlenM
What benefit are there of getting streaks? Or maybe i should say, do streaks have any benefit regardless of what the streak has been gained for?
@Gettingbettertoday that is a really good question. My daughter is learning French on Duolingo right now. Her streak helps her in the sense that it shows commitment, dedication, and is one simple metric for showing continuous progress. If my goal is to become psychologically stronger or more resilient, then I'd see the streak metric on 7 Cups in the same way.
The other piece to it is that it is a signal from me that you can see too. And I think what this means or what it communicates needs to be decided on an individual level and will vary from person to person. For me, I know sometimes people see me as less present or less active since I'm mostly working for our community in the background, and I think this is a nice way to say hey I know you might imagine this about me, but please know I'm here, working hard, because what we do matters a lot to me.
What does the streak mean to you from a personal growth perspective and what would it also communicate to others?
@GlenM
I am on step 900 of my paths in less than 12 month so i don't need streaks for motivation. Streaks do demonstrate participation to others but I don't see a benefit from that. If for example you need a certain number to unlock something then it has meaning as a goal. Because there is a defined goal the steaks now have a set value based on how many are needed to do the unlocks. Unlocks could include special emoji and other digital content for use on this sight.
I saw a video last night that described the 4 parts of the mind. The Ego is the one that likes to accumulate things and get trophies.
@Gettingbettertoday fascinating idea on unlocking things based on reached streak levels. I like that a lot. Are you familiar with the site stack overflow? They unlock certain privileges based on answering enough questions correctly etc. What kind of things / activities do you think would be good to tie to the streak and unlock?
And congrats on 900 steps in 12 months. That is a significant amount of progress!
@GlenM
Is good change because growth path not very good thing for me because so much audio so much video NO captions ! i am profound deaf . other some very confusing words and not want ask every time confused because intellectual disability and Learning disability ☹️How can do those ? Makes impossible ! Skip so much try get thing can do BUT forum go to all time listeners talk to lots happy now counts for streak
question ? Can get badges for new streak ? Earning badges is one my favorite here would be exciting get badges for so much
Am I the only one thinking streaks showing on profile are not good in terms of privacy?
I think users should be able to decide if they want or not want to show their activity through streaks.
I dislike gamification.
I believe daily streak showing on public profile should be opt in, otherwise it should be kept private.
This is a privacy and safety concern.
@GlenM
