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The Pillars of Personal Growth – Routine

This post is part of “The Pillars of Personal Growth” series. You can read the first post about awareness here.

This post is about the power of routine. To explain, let me tell you a story. I follow a routine to get my baby ready after I give her bath. I put her diaper on and then apply lotion, dress her up and give her vitamin D. The other day she insisted on wearing her dress first. I thought, Why not? An hour later, she was sitting on my lap and playing. All of a sudden I felt wet and warm on my lap. It was too late when I realized I forgot to put her diaper on. I changed my routine once and I paid the price. 

When I started taking personal growth seriously I developed a morning routine. I started exercising as soon as I woke up. After workout I read for half an hour. Then I wrote my journal. It took me more than an hour to finish all the activities. After a few days I stopped writing. It was hard to stick to the routine. A few weeks later, I gave up on my routine altogether.

While talking to my friend, he suggested that I read Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book introduced me to the power of routine. Based on the principles, I developed a routine that solved my consistency problem.

  1. Start small. Make it easy. 
  2. Stack habits. 
  3. Change your environment. 
  4. Show up. 
  5. Stick to it. 
  6. Plateau of Latent Potential

Start small. Make it easy

The problem with my original routine was, I started too much too soon. When we start something new, we have to make it easy for ourselves. I scaled down from more than an hour to just 15 minutes of reading. I was then able to go on for more than a month with this short routine. Make it easy by making it tiny.

Stack habits

Once I was able to read regularly, I decided to stack exercise before reading. I started off with just 10 pushups. It took me less than a minute. I slowly added more reps and more exercises to my routine. By stacking exercise on top of reading, I started exercising consistently. If you can do one activity consistently for a long time, you can stack another activity on top of it.

Change your environment


We need to change our environment to change ourselves. Driving to a gym half was a hustle for me. I bought the kettlebells and made a home gym. Before going to bed, I left the weights in the living room. That’s the first thing I see every morning. Similarly, I left books around the house. In the kitchen, bedroom and in the side tables. I take books to the restroom instead of the phone. I changed my environment. It changed me. I started exercising and reading daily. 

Show up

There are days when I woke up late or I had to leave early to work. I would skip my routine for a few days. Those few days off killed my routine. A day missed is not a big deal. A few days of a gap can kill your routine forever. It is important to show up every day. Do just a few reps of each exercise. Read just 2 pages. Walk for 5 minutes. There are days when I will swing the kettlebell just once. It counts. It will keep the streak alive.

Stick to it

Ignore the quantity and the quality in the beginning. Focus only on developing the routine. When I started doing kettlebell swings, I did just 2 reps with a 25lb kettlebell. My form was poor. Now after a year, I can do 50 swings with a 50lbs kettlebell. My form is as good as anyone you will see. There are days I would read for hours even though I committed only 15 minutes. When you show up, you increase the chance of putting in more reps. When you put in more reps, your quality will improve eventually.

Plateau of Latent Potential

Richard Collison wrote about The Four Stages of Competence. The image below is a representation of my understanding. 

  1. Stage1 is our Ignorance. We are unconscious and incompetent. 
  2. We become aware of our ignorance in stage2. Here we are conscious but incompetent. 
  3. With practice we move to stage 3 where we become conscious and competent.
  4. By showing up daily and putting in the reps, we develop our competence and we perform unconsciously. It becomes easy and part of our identity. James Clear calls this stage the “Plateau of Latent Potential”. 

The above quote hangs on the wall of the locker room of one of the most successful teams in sports, the San Antonio Spurs. You just have to show up, put in the reps and stick to the routine until the hundred and first blow to see the results. People will recognize your results. Some may even call you overnight success. 

For me, the Plateau of Latent Potential came after a year since I started the routine. I hardly miss my morning routine these days. I do 315 jump ropes, 50 reps of pushups, situps, squats, swings, and shoulder press a day. It may not seem much on any given day, but it adds up quickly. More importantly, it compounds and works in your favor. Here is what I did this past month. 

  • 9,450 jump ropes, 1,500 Push-ups, 1,500 Sit-ups, 1,500 Squats, 1,500 swings, 1,500 shoulder presses
  • Wrote 30,000 words in my journal
  • Read 4 books – How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, The Obstacle is the Way, The Culture Code and I reread The Effective Executive. 
  • Meditated for 450 minutes

With a routine, we can become competent and do what others don’t do. But to do what others can’t do, we need to focus and maximize our time and attention. The most common problem in this digital world is the lack of focus. Our attention span has come down to seconds. We cannot read a few pages without getting distracted. How can we maximize our attention? In the next post, I will share how to avoid distractions and maximize our attention.

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