Habit formation
YouReach measures whether a habit is actually forming. Strength moves with each scheduled occurrence. A missed day is not a broken streak, and it does not end the habit by itself.
Strength
Strength is the habit’s momentum, shown as a percentage. Each completion on a scheduled day lifts it. Each miss pulls it down. Days that are not on the schedule do not count either way.
Strength reflects the recent pattern, not a lifetime total, and it does not climb all the way to 100%. The gauge uses three bands: 80% and above is strong, 30% to 79% is the usual building range, and under 30% is critical.
A streak is shown separately. It is consecutive completions and does not decide Formed, Established, or lapse.
Stages
A habit moves through three success stages. The strength gates are the same for every policy. What changes is how much evidence the policy asks for, and how misses are treated.
- Forming — the starting stage. The habit has not yet opened a formation milestone.
- Formed — Strength has reached 50%, enough scheduled occurrences have been evaluated, and there are no open strikes. Keep going toward Established.
- Established — Strength has reached 87.5% and the longer evidence gate has passed. The habit is part of the routine, and it still has to be maintained.
- Lapsed — the habit stopped under its policy. Completions pause during a short cool-off, then you can restart. History of earlier milestones stays on the habit.
Those evidence gates are expressed as patience in weeks, scaled to how often the habit is scheduled. A daily habit and a monthly habit are not asked for the same number of check-ins.
Policies
Every habit stores one policy: Strict, Moderate (the usual default), Loose, or Forgiving. The policy sets patience, how many misses are tolerated before a strike, and — except for Strict — the minimum Strength an established habit must keep.
When a goal or habit draws on several categories, the strictest policy wins: Strict, then Moderate, then Loose, then Forgiving. You can override that suggestion. Changing a goal or category later does not rewrite policies already stored on existing habits.
| Policy | Patience | Misses | Once established | A fit for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strict | 5 formation weeks, 15 establishment weeks | The first miss adds a strike. There is no spare strike budget. | The app does not show a minimum Strength. The floor still applies in the background. | Addiction recovery, critical health goals, professional commitments |
| Moderate | 4 formation weeks, 12 establishment weeks | 1 consecutive miss before the first strike; 1 strike before probation | Stay at or above 80% | Daily exercise, learning a skill, work habits |
| Loose | 3 formation weeks, 9 establishment weeks | 2 consecutive misses before the first strike; 2 strikes before probation | Stay at or above 70% | Creative hobbies, social plans, casual learning |
| Forgiving | 3 formation weeks, 9 establishment weeks | 3 consecutive misses before the first strike; 3 strikes before probation | Stay at or above 65% | Mental health practices, stress recovery, gentle changes |
Misses, probation, and restart
A missed occurrence is a scheduled day with no completion. Misses add up into strikes. Strikes, not a single gap, are what put the habit at risk. Completing scheduled days again clears strikes over time. The policy decides how many completions that takes.
While the habit is still forming
If strikes go past the policy’s budget, the habit lapses directly. There is no probation stage on the way down.
Once it is formed or established
The same strike breach opens probation instead. An established habit also enters probation if Strength falls below its policy floor. Probation lasts seven expected sessions on that habit’s schedule, not a fixed calendar week. On each of those sessions the habit needs to be back within its strike budget and at or above the floor. If it is, probation clears and the stage stays Formed or Established. If it is not, the habit lapses.
After a lapse
A 3-day cool-off starts. Completions are not tracked during that pause. When it ends, you restart on purpose. Restart keeps about 80% of the previous Strength, leaves milestone history visible, and resets strike counters so you can build again.
If changing the schedule would make today newly expected, Skip today starts tomorrow without counting today as a miss. A day skipped by a time-zone change is excused the same way: it is not a miss.
What is not a habit
Rituals and Sprints are recurring too, but they do not use formation, policy, Strength, probation, or lapse. Use a habit when you want a behavior to become Formed and then Established. Use a ritual or Sprint when you want a recurring practice or a short bounded commitment without that pressure.
Habit Strength is one input to Goal Score. The goal’s percentage is not the habit’s Strength, and a lapse does not delete the goal.