On Routines: A Day in Review
How to Ensure There is More You in Your Day
“It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”
-Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy, who doesn't? The vitameatavegamin and chocolate factory episodes get me every time.)
I geek out on routines.
I find them fascinating and love learning what others typically do in a day or as Google defines as [what their] “fixed program” is.
What time do they wake up?
What do they look at on their cell phones before rolling out of bed?
What is their morning skin care routine?
Do they drink coffee? Tea? Hot lemon water?
Do they go on a run? Do yoga? Meditate?
What time do they start work?
What time do they eat lunch?
What’s for lunch?
What tasks are they prioritizing?
{Then I hit them with some loaded Life Coach questions:}
What is working for them?
What isn’t working for them?
What do they wish they were doing that they aren’t currently doing?
& Do they truly enjoy what they are doing with their free time?
So,
Why do routines matter so much to me?
Because these sequences make up your day.
Each day makes up your year.
& Each year makes up your life.
Routines, although seemingly trivial, are hugely important. They create a sense of certainty within uncertain times. It makes us feel some semblance of control during this unprecedented, gray year.
They are actions, rituals, habits, that can have heavily influence how you feel every moment of every day.
“Think of rituals as actions with meaning or emotion attached to them,” Dalton told Healthline.com, “Rituals keep our day moving along but are infused with joy, pleasure, or a positive emotion.” - Tonya Dalton, Productivity Expert (Who knew these existed? I’d love / need to hire one.)
The ever-sought-after feelings of:
Peace
Fulfillment
Joy
Inspiration
Motivation
Energized
Are formed largely as an outcome of what you are taking part in, where you are exerting your energy and how you are thinking.
Q. “How was your day?”
A. “It was a really good day; I woke up early, got my personal best in my Peloton class, had enough time to squeeze in a meditation before work. As a result, I was present in each meeting and felt the inspiration behind the project I am spearheading. I got to go on a walk with my best friend in our favorite park post-work and finally made that Ina Gardner recipe I’ve been dying to try out and didn’t burn it.
I feel proud, on-fire (without the burn), really happy and fulfilled.
Today was a really good day.”
Positive emotions are what we as humans are trying to achieve during and at the end of each day.
We want to feel good. It is that simple. {& can so difficult at the same time!}
1.
Because of this, routines are where I usually first start with my clients.
One question I ask my clients that makes them take pause is:
“Do you truly enjoy what you are doing with your ‘you time’?”
I ask this because more than likely, you have to work a majority of the day (I don’t need to remind you however, being a Mom most definitely counts as ‘going to work’!) and have other obligations that you must tend to which hopefully, you find to be at least 80% fulfilling.
Free-time however, or “you-time”, is your free-for-all. These include “self-moments” (when you only have a few minutes to yourself before diving back in deep) and actual longer segments of time, in which the world is your oyster*. Whether it is a moment or several minutes, it is critical that you are taking part in an action or in-action (Do I have any nap-time lovers out there, too?) that you relish, something that the second you think about it, you are an absolute slap-happy, pig in mud.
I bring up the importance of doing a joy-moment check-in because I myself, realized recently that I was taking part in a boot camp class that I actually didn’t like much at all.
I didn’t enjoy it even a little, and even after completing it, I felt like “eh, OK got that done.”
My self-talk during the entire 50 minutes is very un-coach-like and unlike me in general. Also, there is nothing worse to me than the instructor saying “OK, we have just 30 more seconds left of this plank” and then at the end of the 30 seconds they are like “Just kidding, we are going to now swing the plank from left to right.” I literally cuss up a storm and say out loud “No, nope. You enjoy doing your ten-minute non-stop ab workout, I am going to starfish here on my mat and think about how mad I am at you right now for making me feel weak.”
As I said, very unlike me and as a result, made me realize that I take little to no joy in doing bootcamps.
I get it, not everything that is good for your body and overall health is going to light you up and make you feel like you are an extra in Katy Perry’s “Baby You’re Firework” video, BUT you should enjoy it at least a little and even more importantly, feel that sense of accomplishment afterwards. It is easy to get stuck in a pattern that has been your go-to because it has worked for Brittany, she has blogged about its’ success and talks about her weight loss journey nonstop, so why wouldn’t it work for you and light you up on the inside, too?
Because it was Brittany’s bootcamp all along. Just because she loves it, doesn’t guarantee you’ll love it too. And that is OK. Brittany, go on with your bad self, but I am going to find a yoga class that combines meditation and body movement in a gentler way, in more of my way.
This goes for all other actions / activities outside of exercise, too.
If you take part in an activity that is a total time suck, de-motivating, frustrating or makes you feel “hmm, that was fine, I guess.” = You just set the tone for the rest of your day.
Whereas if you take part in an activity that makes you feel as if sparks are shooting off of you, gives you twinkle toes dancing in the kitchen, or calms you down so much, you are relaxed and at peace drinking tea alongside Gandhi = You also, just set the tone for the rest of your day, but this time it is a more beneficial tone.
Make sure you love what you do within your joy-tine, because time is a precious resource and can either make a day a whole lot better or make it worse.
2.
Next, if we identify that my client has been stuck within a cycle of “I think I still like it, but on second thought, maybe I don’t.” I ask that they dig deeper and sit with themselves, ask themselves “What do I love to do? What activity when I think about it, evokes a positive response? I love watching the Food Network, I wish I could taste the food that they are cooking in front of me, so maybe I can look-up their recipe online and cook while I watch it. Make a special meal out of it and toast to myself. Yeah, that feels good.”
For me, put me on a stationary bike + play incredible rap or snap happy tracks and I am your girl moving and grooving (yes, there is a lot of creaky tap backs on this bike).
Or on days where I don’t have the energy to exert, I opt to do a gentle yoga like Sun Salutation and get that stretch in both my mind and body that I crave.
It’s grabbing a book I know I will nerd out about and enjoy reading (I recently read a fantastic book about the most haunted places in the US, it was a real page turner before bed!) or purchasing and arranging floral bouquets, baking delicious treats, listening to podcasts (motivational and um, True Crime (Crime Junkie or My Favorite Murder anyone?, shhh).
What are those things that make you feel like a boss? Make you feel darn good?
& Are you doing them?
Because positive emotion evokes positive emotion.
One inspiring action can lead to another and before you know it, you’ve had a truly incredible day under your belt.
Especially during this year where we have to get creative with spending more time at home, Jennifer L. FitzPatrick, an Inspirational Speaker, notes that:
“We should all ask ourselves, ‘When we return to the new normal, what do we want to have accomplished? Or what would we want to have experienced?’
Then build your routine around that.”
If you are overwhelmed and don’t feel as if there is a minute in your daily routine to dedicate to a sliver of you-time, [I warning you because this isn’t going to be easy to read but…]
I am going to call bull shit and tell you that there is always a way for you to make at least 30 minutes of you-time in a day. It does usually mean sacrificing 30 more minutes of sleep or looking at your schedule and re-arranging it to be in your best interest: To question if there are other ways of doing things, to get creative, in order you to benefit from it.
This schedule, this routine, these hour-by-hour actions make up your day and if you aren’t satisfied with what you see in your day, something has got to change and it has to change very soon, because the alternative won’t get you any close to invoking uplifting emotions you so crave to feel at the end of the day.
3.
After undergoing several exercises surrounding daily routines (both week + weekend) and implementing those changes, the last (and biggest) piece of advice I tell my clients (and myself!) are two words:
Embrace grace.
There are always going to be days where everything goes your way & there are going to be days where you are trying really hard to get things done and squeeze that you-time in and it just isn’t happening; be flexible, grant yourself compassion, and give yourself the gift of grace in knowing that, that moment may not be your moment to shine, but doesn’t meant that the next one can’t be.
{As my husband says: “Some days you are the hammer and some days you are the nail.”}
In summary:
1.) Joy-tine Check in:
Give yourself five minutes to do a joy-tine (joy routine) checkin. Ask yourself if you love how you are spending your free-time. Double check that it isn’t an outdated ritual that you’ve repeated over and over out of habit.
2.) Make a Happy List
Give yourself another five minutes to create a list of actions that make you happy. What gives you something to look forward to doing?
3.) Give the List a test run
Start trying them out, do they feel good? Evoke positivity? Set an uplifting tone to your day?
4.) Grant Yourself Grace
Not every joy-tine is going to bring you joy. Something may go wrong or you may not be able to spend time sitting with it as much as you would like. Laugh about it and carry on.
& The most beautiful thing about evoking positivity, is that happiness is contagious. You can impact someone else’s life just because you made one seemingly small shift in your routine that brought you joy.
That’s one heck of a beautiful ripple effect, isn’t it?
*Nerdy Notes - We all know that The World is Your Oyster means that you can do anything you want, but do you know where it originates from? I didn’t! But according to BellEnglish.com this phrase was coined by the great William Shakespeare and first appeared in his play, The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Falstaff: “I will not lend thee a penny”
Pistol: “Why then the world’s mine oyster/Which I with sword will open.”
“One theory is that the phrase initially related to wealth, but now means all life’s richness with the pearl in the oyster signifying this.”
Fascinating!
The world IS your oyster, so go get em’
“To thine own self be true.”