For more than a year, I have been running my days on routines.
- I have a morning routine focused on my health. I do my exercise and meditation
- I have a breakfast routine to read to my kids.
- I have a bedtime routine to read books.
- I have a weekly writing routine to write and send my newsletter.
For the past few weeks, I have not been sticking to my routines.
- I have skipped my exercise and meditation five times in the last two weeks.
- I read only two times to my kids in the last two weeks.
- I did not read books at all.
- After sending my newsletter for 32 weeks in a row, I skipped sending it last week.
I have been spending most of my time developing a tool for my team to improve their productivity at work. I have been on a flow, knocking off feature after feature. Looking back, I used this project as an excuse for not sticking to my routines. After realizing that, I decided to get back to my routines.
After skipping a routine more than a few times, it becomes hard to get back to it. Every time I thought about writing this week’s newsletter, my mind kept telling me “You lost the game of newsletter.” Every time I found a reason to write the letter, my mind presented ten reasons why I should not write it.
Right when I needed it, my brother sent me this amazing article Avoid the Second Mistake. In this article, James Clear writes,
“When it comes to building good habits and breaking bad habits, individual mistakes do not matter in the long-run. Instead, it is the second mistake that is far more important.”
Sticking to good habits should not be an all-or-nothing game. He writes, “One mistake is just an outlier. Two mistakes is the beginning of a pattern”. As soon as I read that, I decided to write this week’s letter.
In the same article, James suggested some great strategies to break the pattern and to get back into my routines. One strategy that worked for me is “Put all of your energy toward re-starting the old behavior”.
I decided to put all of my energy into writing this week’s newsletter. I stopped worrying about the quality and content. I told myself to start writing and not worry about the outcome. I told myself I can win the week by sending out this newsletter which I did.
Have you struggled with getting back on a routine? How do you motivate yourself to get back on track? What strategies have worked for you?