You don’t wake up one morning telling yourself that you want to build a 365-day streak of practice on Duolingo. There is the first day, when you desire to learn a new language and you hear about the app. The second day, you start to understand the gamification techniques in place. After three days, you get your first badge. Hopefully, you continue to show up for 7 days in a row, and you will get your second badge. You have 10 levels to complete until 365 days.

In between, there are many days when it’s difficult to find time to practice. But you manage to do at least one lesson, or you rely on the streak freeze mechanism. You start to recognize some words when you watch movies and TV series in the language you’re learning. You even manage to read some news headlines.

Once you complete the course, you realize you’re confident to continue your journey. It was hard, but you managed. One day at a time.