I'd further point out that "required" isn't really a productive way to look at this jam or anything about it; if you think of it that way and miss an update, you can start to feel like you've somehow failed.
Like you said, it's a good way to motivate yourself -- and, if you miss one, taking a more positive angle, like "well, better have a good one for tomorrow," can help avoid turning updates into some sort of slog or a source of anxiety.
For me, having a set of goals and then continually breaking each one down into tasks until any given task should take less than a day to accomplish helps avoid days where there's just nothing to talk about. It may not be much, but "my little dude/chick/alien/hamburger now actually faces in the direction it's moving" is progress, and progress is progress.