Why I Built RiteLoop: The Habit Journey

RiteLoop exists because I needed a different kind of habit tracker. One that asked a different question: not how many days in a row, but who you’re becoming. The story starts with habits, or rather, my long and uneven relationship with them.

Decades of Struggle

I’ve struggled with habits for decades. Gym, running, eating well, meditation, sleep, reading, seeing friends, keeping on top of chores. You name it. Different things have worked for different lengths of time. I can’t say I’ve cracked it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m built for doing things regularly at all.

I get the most done when I hyperfocus on one thing, usually something IT-related. I can sit for long days for weeks and months. But “train three times a week, every week”? That’s harder. I have a knack for prioritizing other things. Work, mostly.

Still, I have over 100 training sessions per year for at least the last four years. And for the last thirty years, the pattern has been the same: I get a habit going for a few months, then something happens (a new kid, a new job) and I fall off for a year or two. Meditation? My longest run was maybe four or five times a week for six or seven months.

So no, I haven’t really succeeded. But I still believe strongly in habits.

The Identity-Building Insight

That belief got sharper after reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits a couple of years ago. It hit me hard. I’ve read it once and listened to it twice. I’m going through it again this spring. What stuck with me, and what he and others call identity-building, is the idea that habits aren’t the goal. Who you’re becoming is.

For more on this, see What is Identity? in our Knowledge hub.

What Identity-Building Means to Me

For me, identity-building is about making things as automatic as “I am a person with good oral hygiene.” Because I have that identity, I brush my teeth every morning and evening. I floss in the shower. I go to the dentist every 12–18 months. I’ve never had a cavity and minimal tartar since I started flossing about ten years ago. No drama. No streaks. Just something I do.

I want that same automaticity with other things. I want to be someone who is obsessed with following my systems and hitting my goals. I want it to be obvious that I’m a person who follows a set of habits. That’s my highest priority.

Every time I perform a habit, I’m building that identity, the same way brushing my teeth reinforces that I’m someone with good oral hygiene. If I miss a morning, it doesn’t matter. I’ll do it in the evening. I’m not crying over a broken streak. By evening, there’s no reason to skip; something just got in the way earlier. Same with the rest of my habits.

Why Streaks Don’t Work for Me

Streak-based trackers create anxiety. I’ve tried them. The moment you miss a day, the whole thing resets. You feel like you’ve failed. The identity you’re building gets tied to an unbroken chain, and when it breaks, it feels like you’ve lost everything.

That’s not how identity works. Identity is built from evidence, not from perfection. One missed morning doesn’t erase the fact that you’ve brushed your teeth thousands of times. The evidence accumulates. The identity solidifies. RiteLoop is built around that idea: Evidence Over Streaks, as we put it on the How It Works page.

Designing Rites That Stick

A habit is something you do. A ritual is something that transforms you. The difference is in the intention, structure, and meaning you bring to it. I wanted a tracker that treated habits as rites: bounded, repeatable, meaningful practices that forge identity over time.

For more on designing rituals, see Anatomy of a Rite. For a glossary of habit terms from Atomic Habits, Tiny Habits, and the broader literature, check out Habitopedia.

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For the technical side, see Why I Built RiteLoop: The Tech. For the full picture, About RiteLoop.