What sort of a routine do you have?
Have you ever sat down to analyse what things you do that are habits or things that form part of your routine?
The best way to change your fortune or your health is to change your routine or make new desired activities or responses into habits.
How fast to you start your day?
This is actually very easy to do. The hard part is firstly identifying the habits you want to change, working out the desired action and then putting it into practice long enough for it to become routine – or a new habit.
Then the really bad news it that it is no where near as hard to lose a good habit that you had learnt in place of a bad habit or routine.
This is what has happened to me in the last week:
On Monday last week I started to get a pain in my foot, but being an optimist, I went for my jog on Tuesday as planned. Guess what… it got worse! So, I didn’t go for a jog on Thursday but went of Friday instead so that I had an extra rest day. Guess what… on Friday it got even worse again – so I decided I’d need a longer break from doing my morning jog.
Now it is six days since I’ve been for my jog and I’m beginning to feel a little slovenly. I noticed I have been getting up slightly later and I’ve started to notice that I’m lacking in my usual energy during the day. It is easy to see how I could get used to rolling out of bed – have a shower – eat – etc. instead of up at 5:30am for a 6-10km jog – etc. (particularly as summer is nearly over).
When you drop one thing from your regular routine for long enough, it is easy for it to get completely neglected. I’m a firm believer in getting an active start for the body because I’ve seen so many times how much this sort of start improves your day.
I’ve heard it said that there are three types of people – those who spring out of bed (like me) – those who work late and sloth about in the morning until they fire up with their morning coffee at about 10am – and those who stop and start all day.
I have been all three of these types in the past. My personal experience is that you can train your body to work in any way that you want. If you want to slob around until 10 or 11am, then you can. If you choose to be an early riser, you can. In just the same way as you can choose to be fat or thin.
How might a change in your routine change your life?