Have you ever tried starting a morning or night routine?
Maybe you’re like me and you’ve read self-help book after self-help book telling you that having a routine helps you start off your day shitting glitter like your some kind of magical fucking unicorn.
What the hell you decide, I’ll give it a go and start a routine and see how it goes. You make it a couple months, stop doing it one day, and then a few days later you’re sitting there thinking to yourself…
Uh… WTF Just Happened?!? I was doing so good and just stopped for like no fucking reason!
If that’s you, this is your video!
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A few years ago, around the age of 30, I hit a point in my life which I would consider to be my “rock bottom.” I had struggled with anger as a child which lead to severe depression as an adult. I hated my life, and honestly, I just wasn’t happy. It was also the first time I truly felt scared that I might actually kill myself and that doing so was the only option. Suddenly, there was another voice saying to stop thinking about it and just focus on what you can control. Accept where you are, which is rock bottom, let’s be honest here, then figure out what you can do to get out of the pit that you most likely dug for yourself.
This lead me to self-help books and things like yoga, mediation and God.
I, like you, have a past of trying to create a routine that just wouldn’t stick. I think I figured it out what works for me and now I’m going to share that with you… The secret? The icing on the cake? The Bees Knees?
You can’t have perfection inside discipline.
We all have this “thing” built in to our very being to strive to do better, to be better, at whatever it is we are doing.
Was it enough to crawl or did we learn to walk? Was it enough to walk or did we learn to run? Was it enough to run or did we learn to use horses? Was it enough to use horses or did we create automobiles? Was it enough to create automobiles or did we learn to fly?
The very fact that you want to develop a routine proves that point in my humble opinion.
We are hardwired to do what we do… to the best of our ability.
Where we fail is when we think we have to be perfect at our routine, especially when starting out. If we miss a day, we throw our hands towards the heavens and tell ourselves we are a failure, just like we’ve always known. If we even miss one part of our routine but follow through with everything else, we say things to ourselves that we’d never utter to another person. The negative self talk is the barrier to a routine. The desire for it to be perfect.
There are going to be days when you wake up and just don’t feel like doing what you agreed with yourself to start doing. It’s….O…..K….
Instead of beating yourself up, compromise like you would in a marriage. For example, my perfect morning routine looks like this…
So first, I wake up
Then I Read For 30 Minutes
Next I Workout for 30 Minutes Cardio (While Practicing Social Distancing) Replaces my 1 hour at the gym right now.
Shower & Get Ready
Practice Spanish for 15 Minutes
Meditate for 15 Minutes
All in all, my morning routine takes me about 2 hours to complete.
However, some days, I just may not feel like reading for 30 minutes. That voice may come to me and try to convince me to just give up on my routine. That it’s too hard. That I’ll fail just like every other time. That I’ll never amount to anything…You know the voice I’m talking about…Right?
Of course, in the past I fought this, like many of you I’m sure, but I’d still end up failing. I’d end up telling myself the fact is that I’m just a quitter, a failure, a loser. Honestly, those are probably the nicest way of saying it.
That night I hit rock bottom? I accepted it. Instead of fighting it, I said what if I just accept it.
Damn… It was like a light switch being flipped in my brain.
What if I accept the fact that I am a failure. I can’t always do what I want to do when I want to do it. Whether it’s true or not, let’s just accept I am where I am… So if it’s my fault and I’m the one failing…
What can I do to change it?
I literally can not force myself to read for 30 minutes today!
OK…
Can I read for 1 minute today? Yeah, that’s super easy. How about 5 minutes. Yes. I can do that.
And you know what ends up happening? Instead of reading for 5 minutes, I end up reading for 30.
Sometimes, though… I do only read for 5 minutes and that’s okay too.