The Importance of Routine In Helping You Feel Like You

#4 - 09.12.22

Recently I’ve been in a bit of a rut.

Unable to wake up at my normal work time.

Achieve my set out goals. And just felt like a general lack of motivation.

And in my acknowledgement of this (even this I almost procrastinated over) I realised it was the stopping of my own routine since moving to my current home that led to this.

It got me thinking about the importance of routine.

I’m not talking about blindly doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. That as the great theorist Einstein described it, is insanity.

What I’m talking about here is having a deep recognition and knowledge of yourself, your patterns and what you need to practice persistently, your own code, to be able to perform.

This, as Harvard Business Review states, is the precursor of high-performance habits.
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Take me for example.

I know for a fact that if I go onto LinkedIn before 12 pm, it’ll most likely reduce my chances of sharing my own post or thoughts due to getting caught up in what everyone else has to say.

If I don’t intentionally set and review my goals the night before, I’m most likely not going to have structure and focus for my mornings that followed.

If I struggle to find meaning in my work without time pressure, I often “cruise” to doing the work and then tear it all up later and start again due to feeling unhappy with what I’ve produced.

If you’re in your mid-thirties you should have enough data now to know yourself - and the core components of your routine that you need to stick to, for that structure to work.

And if you’re in your 20's or younger, these are the mental muscles you need to intentionally develop.

For example; do you really need your phone before 12 pm? Surely if it’s urgent enough, someone will call you.

Do you really need to have a heavy breakfast if you know it makes you feel lethargic as you get through your morning shift?
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For me, abandoning what I know about myself, takes me away from the habits that have become almost second nature. Habits that I'd honed almost on autopilot over time to create a decent impact.  

Things that allowed me to be me. To create and do work that had blessed me with multiple businesses over only a four-year period.

My almost “religious” routine.
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Routines regulate.
Routines remedy.
Routines realign.
Routines refocus.
Routines re-engerise.

According to a study done by WeWork, some of the most successful people in the world have their own morning routines that set them up for success.

So as I aim to conquer my most recent rut feeling by writing this article. I recognised how important revisiting my old routines were.

And if you’re feeling in a similar space, mentally go back to a time when you felt super productive. Write down what you did - and what you can realistically do again - and repeat those wins. Because maybe you too need to recognise, could it have been you also abandoning your own little regular routine, that got you feeling less regulated too?

‍Think about.

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