It seems like I’ve managed to go off-piste with my writing recently, skimming down the imaginary snowy slopes on fresh powder unincumbered by the need to stay in my figurative writing lane. It’s been quite refreshing, if I’m honest with you.
In a burst of hubris, I’ve decided to go even further out on a limb which brings me nicely to the topic of this post, routine.
As an ardent user of the internet, and who isn’t these days, it’s hard not to find your mouse pointer hovering over something like this; 10-morning habits which successful people swear by. Or maybe, How long does it take to break a habit?
Those with a quick eye and I’m grouping all of you into this bracket, as you’ve found my writing (nice work!), will note that I’ve switched Routines for Habits in the above. Let’s quickly cover this one off because until I started writing this post, I really didn’t know the difference.
A habit; a habit is the impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought.
A routine; a series of behaviors frequently repeated.
A routine is a precursor to a habit; you need to engage your noodle to repeat a process because, most likely, it doesn’t come naturally. Speaking from my experience, the easiest way to de-abstract this is to think of this in terms of doing some form of exercise.
To begin your “get fit journey”, you have to set yourself up for the process of getting sweaty, defining a set of goals and plotting out a time in your schedule to help you get there; Must exercise once a week on a Wednesday, for example.
Every Wednesday, you most likely start the day feeling a bit disappointed, it’s the middle of the working week, and you’re unmotivated to do much at all, especially not slip into your gym shorts (you’ve probably forgotten where you put them anyway, so, you know, what a hassle).
You remember that exercising is likely to make you live longer, and potentially you’ll think about the jam doughnut you intend to nail later in the day, which will need to be worked out of your system before it hits your thighs.
Off you pop, shorts on and do your exercise. Several weeks pass, it’s still a conscious thought, but by now, you’ve found that “just so” spot to keep your exercise kit and have 13 or so motivational tracks to beam through your headphones. You also have a standing order for coffee and doughnuts with the local barista for the afternoon.
A month or so goes by (lovely how we can just shortcut all that hard effort in writing this, not doing it!), and on Tuesday, on the way home from work, your car tyre explodes.
Wednesday is not going to be an exercise day. By the end of Wednesday, you’re feeling more than a bit grumpy and have the nagging sensation that you’re missing something… and bingo, exercise has become a habit. Now you realise you can’t really do without it; the endorphins it releases have your brain nailed on to the process, do exercise, and feel great; it is no longer something you have to think about; you just do it.
Let’s keep things loose and make habits interchangeable with routines since it’s a blurred line when one becomes the other.
Routine is a lovely thing for humans; you know where you are and what you’re supposed to be doing next, and there is a sense of order to proceedings. Humans seek to apply order to chaos; it makes us happy at some primal layer.
Just like the set of cosy, well-worn slippers that you put on every day, getting into your routine can be just as comfortable, more so, in fact.
Routine is great for achieving goals, making changes and influencing positive behaviours. On the other side of this potentially valuable coin is calcification, or put more simply, becoming overly rigid in your daily.
Spontaneous things are shelved, ignored, worried about, or just plain forgotten. The routines and habits which weave together to make the basket of your existence have become something else, a handmade prison of your own making.
I’m taking a fairly polarised view of this, by the way, it’s likely you’re not entirely constrained by routine; I’m going for shock and awe here to be illustrative.
As with everything in life, balance and compromise rule the roost. Too much of something (doughnuts and coffee aside!) is just as bad as not enough.
Awareness, then, is perhaps the key to passing through the door of lifeless rigidity. Putting a bookmark in your week to take a look at yourself. I have a little list which I call Life Priorities, to do just this. It’s not a to-do list or a set of life goals; it’s a list of behaviours which I know make me happier.
For example, one such item germinated this blog post; Let an impulse grab you by the hand and lead you to meet new people or create some experience in your day which helps mark it out from every other one.
Closing this post out before it gets too long-winded, watch your routines; the older you become, the more likely these are going to be constraining as your freedom to be impulsive is taken over by children, work or other commitments.
As always, thank you for reading, friends. I’ve enjoyed looking out at the horizon with you and spending a bit of reflecting. Careful; reading my posts might become a habit.