There’s no denying the fact that routines are one of the best ways to organize your life. But keeping a productive and effective routine can be a very difficult process, one that is full of myths and misconceptions about how routines work and how best to implement them. So here are some of the common myths about routines.
Routines aren’t recipes
You’ve read it a million times—Barak Obama and Cleopatra both had morning routines so if you want to be successful, you need a morning routine as well. And there’s some truth to that. Having a routine that makes you happy and energized can be an incredibly powerful tool for being focused, relaxed, and feeling fulfilled. But reading a newspaper every morning while doing yoga on a patio does not a queen of Egypt make.
The key to a good routine is figuring out what it is that you personally enjoy. This can be regular and clearly timed tasks or just a space where you can do something new each day. Ultimately, you need to listen to yourself and see what feels right. Don’t look at routines as guaranteed manuals to success. They are just ways to help you organize and reflect on your life.
Change must happen slowly or right away
There are two myths about changing your routines: either that it is better to change your routines slowly over time or that you simply need to rip off the bandaid and dive in. Both are missing the point.
Just like with routines and recipes, the best way to change your habits can be anything that works for you. If you start exercising regularly but it exhausts you to do it every day, perhaps this means a slower approach is better. Maybe if every time you take it slowly and you don’t feel challenged and stop exercising, a more direct approach is better. Listening to yourself and your needs will always give you the best idea of how to approach your routines. There is no one size that fits all in routines.
You can never break your routine
This is another common myth. Many people think that if they break their routine even once, their entire progress is ruined and they have to start over. But this is simply not true. Routines are ideally something that helps you focus, that makes you relaxed and happy, or that gives you some sort of pleasure. So breaking your routine for a day does not really change how it can benefit your life.
Instead of worrying, try to think of why you didn’t follow through with your routines. Looking back at the times you broke it might give you just the information you need to tweak your routines to be more flexible or to suit your needs better.
You need to focus on the goal
Some people are naturally goal-orientated and some are not. Still, many of us want to build routines to reach some kind of a goal—perhaps we want to write a novel or lose a few pounds. And it can feel like the motivation of having a clear goal will see us through to the end.
But this isn’t always the case. Motivation dwindles as we keep up our routines and we might find ourselves not making as much progress towards our goal as we would’ve liked. This can be really demotivating—so much so that we might simply break the routine and never return to it.
Some recommend simply setting up a routine with realistic strategies of how to reach the goal, having systems of achieving it, and then simply forgetting about the goal entirely. If the point of daily exercise is to lose weight, then a good routine will do that sooner or later. There’s no need to lose x pounds in x amount of time. Just focus on keeping your routine and celebrate every new small achievement that you find along the way.
