Circles vs. the anonymous feed: when to use which

Steadyfy has two different ways to be supported, and they're not interchangeable. Knowing which one fits a given moment makes both of them work better.

Scenario one: strangers who don't know you

You're three weeks into quitting drinking. Your partner is supportive, genuinely, but they've never had the thought that crossed your mind at 9pm last Tuesday. They don't know what it's like to sit in that specific kind of wanting. Explaining it to them feels like a second job on top of the actual struggle.

This is what the anonymous feed is for. You post it, under a username no one can trace back to you, and it reaches people who've had that exact 9pm Tuesday. They check in. They say Me Too. Nobody in this exchange needs to understand your whole life to understand this one true thing, because they've lived a version of it themselves.

Scenario two: people who already know you

Now flip it. You're trying to build a habit that's boring to talk about: going to the gym three times a week, or finally answering your emails before noon. There's no deep secret here, no shame in it being hard, just the ordinary difficulty of doing a thing consistently when nobody's checking. What you need isn't a stranger who's been through it. You need your two closest friends to actually notice whether you showed up.

This is what a Circle is for. You invite the specific people you trust, three or four is usually plenty, set a shared goal, and choose how often you check in: daily or weekly. Everyone can see, at a glance, who showed up and who didn't. It's accountability with people who already have context on your life, not people who need the backstory first.

The real difference isn't privacy, it's who's holding you to it

It's tempting to think of the anonymous feed as "public" and Circles as "private," but that's not quite the right frame, since both are private by default. The real difference is who's on the other end. The feed connects you to people who understand the problem because they've lived it. A Circle connects you to people who'll actually notice if you quietly stop trying, because they know you well enough to notice.

Neither one is the upgraded version of the other. They solve different problems.

A rough way to decide

• If the thing you're carrying feels too heavy or too private to say to people in your real life, post it anonymously.
• If the thing you're building is more about consistency than confession, and you already have people who'd genuinely show up for you, start a Circle.
• If you're not sure, start with the anonymous post. It's lower-stakes, and plenty of people end up doing both for different parts of the same season.

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