A Starting Point | Morning & Evening Routines

For a long time, I could not get hold of my goals, aspirations, and tasks. I wanted to build certain habits such as consistent reading, morning exercising, scheduling, and so on. I kept them always in my head and I would hardly take action. My life took another direction once I started my morning and evening routines.

Trigger the Change

Everyone has healthy goals, but very few take action on them. I was one of the many. The more I delayed actions, the more guilt I felt. It was an endless cycle that was difficult to break.

My problem was that I considered myself a perfectionist, which hindered me from getting started. Instead of setting a habit to read 10 minutes a day, I would set a goal to read 12 books a year. My goals were too big to get started.

The solution was to start small and be very specific: perform morning and evening routines. I needed a system that would hold all my thoughts somewhere physical, not in my mind. I made a template with the predefined points to go through. By then, I used two principles of habit building. First, I started small, and second, I made it easy.

In the beginning, I would only write a few things in the morning: what I am grateful for and a few affirmations to shift my believes about myself. In the evening, I would try to schedule the next day and write 4–5 sentences about the past day. Once I was consistent enough with the routine I started to add more habits I’d liked to build. I began to stretch in the morning for 5 minutes while the coffee is being ready, exercise my vocal cords while I go through my morning routine. As a part of my evening routine, I added reading a book for 10 minutes, practicing visualization techniques, and writing what I learned that day. The more I completed those habits and checked them, the more I was invested and did not want to miss a day. I applied another rule for building a habit: it was more satisfying to checkmark a task than not do it.

I have been practicing it for almost two months and it has been one of the best improvements in my life. Not only I started building small habits, but I have also been consistent with other tasks. The compound effect works not only in financial investment but also in self-improvement. No matter how small is the habit, if it adds value, even 1%, in the long run, it will make a significant change.

All this was novel and encouraging. However, I have not been feeling well lately and was not very motivated. It is critical to keep going in such moments no matter what. You should always perform the minimum. For instance, if I cannot find any good idea to write about, I sit and spill a few sentences to get me going. Once I am in the process, I come up with thoughts that lead me to curious discoveries. Even if it is not the best post, it is more relevant to be consistent, rather than perfect.

The reason for starting small and being consistent is that changes take a lot of energy. It is expensive for our brain to rewire established neural connections in a new way. You might feel like not doing it so that the changes stop, and the energy is conserved for more “important” stuff like self-preservation or hunger. Our instincts haven’t evolved so fast as our environment has, so the primitive part of our brain still thinks we live in the wild, and the energy we have is better spent somewhere else, not on silly habits we aspire for. Once you reach the critical point, though, it will become easier to build the next habits.

Later on, I started to set macro goals with weekly and monthly reviews. It helped me to see the bigger picture and adjust my habits and actions to make progress. Weekly reviews help to get hold of the development. They show whether I am on the schedule, how much I slept, how I felt, and what I learned. The monthly reviews allow me to see if I take action to reach my goals. If I notice that I have completed very few actions, then I still have time to correct my course. The next step would be to add the year review to make conclusions and plan the next one.

Steps to Take Off

If I go back three months ago and talk to my past self, the strategy I would share would be the following.

Step 1. Set a daily habit/routine

Think about what you would like to improve or do within a day. It can be sleep time, reading, learning to play an instrument, or study. Whatever you wish. The task, however, should not be difficult. On the contrary, it must be as easy as possible. Consider the amount of work you can do without effort. If you’d like to exercise, but it seems hard for you to do it consistently, start by doing only ten or fewer repetitions of the exercise.

Step 2. Be consistent

It is crucial to show up and be consistent. Even if it’s the very minimum you can do, and it does not feel like progress. You have to establish a habit and then add complexity.

Step 3. Never miss two times straight

It is okay to miss a day. Anything can happen. Forget it and start the new streak. I have always noticed that once I miss two days straight, I never come back to it. There will be times that you might think that it’s not what you want or you are not motivated. Think about the end goal and stick to your habit. Let your consciousness take control over the primitive part of the brain.

Step 4. Increment

Once you feel comfortable with the habit, add the complexity or new habits. However, try to take things slowly and do not overwhelm yourself.

Summary

The other two important aspects that come to my mind when I think of what spurred the change in my life are Atomic Habits and Notion. The book was the theory I learned about habits and how they work. Notion was the platform I started to build a system to accomplish the habits and the goals. I discovered them almost simultaneously, and they complemented each other in the best way. It is possible to build a system without software, but it was essential for making my habits much simpler to perform. I hope you find my experience useful and start building your habit that would be the first step in your long journey.

Originally published at https://www.maray.ai.