Rituals are the way to having a better day – Mountain Lesson No.44
Are you struggling to get things done?
Has the pandemic changed your daily routines and thrown things out for you?
Here’s six rituals to help you have a better, more productive day.
A lot of people that I talk to lately have been struggling with maintaining a routine of getting things done, and keeping fit and healthy. For many of us, our routines and rituals have been turned on their heads, or at the risk of being turned on their heads, because of the changes brought about by COVID-19.
In fact, you could insert any reason into this equation and there are risks of feeling like we have lost our way or lost control.
What works for me, for people that I work with and also in the research that I’ve done is that we need to stick to a basic routine. Let’s call them rituals because routines sound like a chore to me. Let’s create a routine that has a set of rituals in it.
If you’re a parent you know that a routine is critical with children. It’s the same with adults, too! We look for reasons to NOT do the things that we know we probably should. And then all of a sudden there’s a snowball effect and we find ourselves not being able to get a lot done, not being productive and not being in a state that’s productive.
The best way to motivate change is to have a reason. A goal that you want. Not a goal you would like but a goal that you really want. An advertising agency director once said “the best offers are the ones that get the cripples out of bed”. Nope, it’s not very PC, sorry. Think about the intention. The reason to act has to be compelling. More compelling that the hurdles and the barriers and the excuses and distractions, the laziness, the tiredness, the old habits, and the non-serving habits from others in your environment.
So, set a goal first. This will motivate you to get up and take action. Here’s a link to a learn more about our goalsetting process.
Next, follow these steps. Some of them will be easier than others. The ones you don’t want to do are probably the ones that you MUST do. Tell your little voice where to go!
The six steps:
meditate
exercise
eat healthy
less coffee, less alcohol, more water
write a daily list
more sleep, less device time
“How do I possibly fit all that into my day?”
Yep, I hear ya! Your little voice–that voice in your head that nags and complains–is going crazy! “Meditation is woo woo! I don’t like exercise! I can’t afford to eat healthily! I’m too tired without coffee! Have you seen how long my list is!? I don’t have time to sleep! I hate goal setting!”
Your little voice won’t like this but…. if you let your little voice win the war between ‘what I should do’ and ‘what I feel like doing’, then this is why you’re getting the results you’ve got. It’s time to make a change.
Back to the list.
Meditation helps us to get into a calm and positive frame of mind. A great way to start the day. It can be a simple as sitting still, in a quiet space, undistracted, for 5 minutes. No device, no music. Just a comfortable sitting position and a straight back, and focus on your breath. Classical music or the sound of running water is fine, too.
[Minimum time required = 5 minutes]
Try it. Set a timer for 5 minutes and give it a go. I recently took a 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Retreat, in silence. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and also the most rewarding. If I can sit on my butt for 11 hours a day for 10 days, I reckon you can find 5 minutes.
Exercise has tonnes of benefits. A healthy body supports a healthy mind. You don’t need a gym to get started, and honestly, the hardest part of working out is often just getting to the gym. Go for a run. Do a resistance workout at home. Skip a rope 200 times. Run on the spot. There really is no excuse. If you have a condition that restricts ’typical’ exercise, then consult an expert and find a solution. Get your heart rate up and stimulate your brain into peak performance for the day.
[Minimum time required = 5 minutes and medium to high intensity]
Eating healthy means different things to different people. Some people have different preferences, allergies, intolerances, and so on. There are at least 5 famous diets that all counteract each other. Yes, it can be confusing and the little voice loves confusion. It says “well, I am confused and this all seems too hard so I’m gonna protest and recommend we don’t change anything!” What we can all agree on is we are what we eat, and research shows that diet is responsible for 70 - 80% of weight management. The simplest suggestion is to cut back on sugar, manage calorie intake (eat fewer calories than you burn), and eat more foods that stimulate healthy organ function. Google it.
To avoid starting a war on what constitutes a healthy diet, I will only speak from my experience and share what works for me: lots of plant protein, fish, no bread or pasta, no honey or sugar in coffee or tea, no dairy (I’m intolerant, and, cows milk is for raising calves into cows, not humans), brown rice in moderation, bananas, and apples. That’s it. Sunday treats are healthy pancakes with oats instead of flour. And I do have a weakness for dark chocolate, but I burn it off.
[Time required = 15 minutes of mindful food preparation]
Drinking less coffee helps us to sleep better and not suffer constant ups and downs throughout the day. I’ve found that by cutting back from 3 or 4 ‘proper’ coffees per day to just one proper coffee or even just one instant coffee, I sleep a lot better, have less anxiety, and hence am more rested for a more productive day. Drinking less alcohol helps us to sleep better too, not make poor food choices like snacking at night, not make poor judgments or decisions or shoot off our mouth, etc. Again I speak only from my experience: too much coffee made me hyperactive, anxious, on high alert, and talk too much (read that as annoy and disrupt others). Wine becomes the ‘rewarding’ relaxant at the end of a coffee-induced anxious and busy day, sometimes one glass turns into 2 or 3, and then any hope of productivity after the kids go to bed goes out the window. It’s an easy trap to fall into. The best intentions of home study, reading, planning or meditation get booted out the window by the lazy little voice. Try limiting coffee to one per day, before midday and treat wine (or whatever your drink of choice is) as a reward.
[Time required = none]
Writing a daily list helps to plan and prioritise. As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail. It’s easy for the day to run away from us if we don’t focus on what’s important. We end up getting sucked into what’s urgent and find easy, low priority tasks to feed our procrastination beast. Brian Tracy’s ABCD method works wonders, and it’s simple. In a nutshell, list everything you need to do. Prioritise from A through to D. A is must do, B is should do, C is could do, D is ditch or delegate. Then number all the As from 1 to 10 or however long your A list is. Be careful not to make all your list A’s, that could be overwhelming. NEVER do a B item when there are untouched A items on your list. For my wondering, impatient, bored brain that hates routine and monotony, this is extremely difficult to stick to but also extremely rewarding.
[Time required = 15 minutes on a Sunday evening, then 5 minutes each morning]
Getting more sleep allows our bodies to recover, reduce the risk of common colds, and also allows our brain to process what we’ve learned that day. It’s also the chance for our subconscious to go to work on solving challenges for us. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said that the best way to get more sleep is to “sleep faster!” Let’s think of it as getting better quality sleep. How do we do this?
Less device time before bed
Less alcohol and coffee
Establish an evening ritual
Exercise hard enough that your body wants to sleep to recover
Evening rituals with less environmental stimulation from TV, devices, and loud music prepare us for sleep. The single biggest factor in getting better sleep, is DON’T TAKE YOUR PHONE TO BED WITH YOU. Set a cut off time, say 10.30pm, and then leave your devices in a different room. Let’s see what your little voice has to say about that!
Use an alarm clock or set the alarm on your phone and leave it in another room so you have to get out of bed. Avoid the snooze button.
[Time required = 15 minutes to put your phone away, set up a $5 alarm clock, and read in bed]
Do we always drink our own kool-aid? Nope! We are human after all, but when we know what’s good for us and notice that something isn’t working, then we have to choose to make a change, and just do it.
What about our environment? Distractions and other people’s influence can wear down your best intentions. We’ll address this next time.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your rituals for creating more of what you want and managing your day.
Be amazing!
Dan :)
ps. If you need help with any of this, get in touch and I’ll gladly help.
Photo by Malvestida Magazine on Unsplash