sidenote - it's not that you're bad at sticking to routines, it's that you're not being honest with yourself about your own limitations and adjusting your plan for them.m
sidenote We hold onto things that give us pain because they're comfortable, we've done the negative thing, thought the negative though, said the negative saying so many times that it's become routine. Instead of giving up the suffering and pain, we hold on because it's easy. In it's place, though, could be a whole other way of experiencing life.
sidenote This all seems like common sense, and it really is, however there's a difference in knowing common sense and believing in it. Believing in it requires much more than knowing it, requires faith in the results of actions that have no immediate benefit. It requires setting aside your lesser desires to 'give up' in exchange for a focused approach on consecutive right action.
sidenote - quick question (that to me is probably the most important question when you're working on improving your self/life/business.) Your honest answer is the answer to why you are where you are, and why you're not where you want to be... that question? "How do I define my place in the world?" If you answer it honestly there's a good chance your current actual belief is different than what you want to believe. You need to dig deep and address whatever it is that makes the answer NOT what you want it to be. Work on changing till you actually believe where you want to be, instead of holding on to where you might think you belong. This was my biggest barrier to "leveling up", I didn't ACTUALLY believe I could do it. I wanted to believe, but I didn't do the things I needed to get there. I didn't take the actions, didn't adjust the habits, didn't work to address my doubts. It's not easy, and it definitely takes time. But if you take the time to dig deep, focus intensely, and resolve to change; well - you can do it
sidenote this is why choosing the correct routines is so important, you want to make sure you are prioritizing because they are beneficial, not because you think you should.
sidenote "happiness movement vs. personal development" Far more people have a strong desire to be happy than a strong desire to develop themselves to a fuller potential. “Personal development” sounds to most people like work, and who wants to work harder than they are already working? But “happiness” doesn’t sound like work. It sounds like … well, it sounds like being happier. routines9 p.100 When you read all the research about what it takes to raise your level of happiness, you begin to realize that these scientists are describing exactly the same kinds of behaviors that all the personal development teachers have been advocating for decades, just applied in a slightly different context. And positive psychology, as it turns out, is the perfect mate to positive philosophy. In other words, the slight edge. p.101
sidenote - the question isn't why am I bad at routines, it's why am I not taking responsibility for my routines? Do I believe I am responsible for them? Do I want the outcomes they promise? Blaming myself (self-ego) is the same as removing responsibility from myself for acting on my own belief that I should have routines in my life; do I actually believe that I do?
sidenote { routines require focus, they require a quiet mind. If you live with many internal thorns that you don't know how to deal with, you're going to find execution of them difficult. Keeping your eye on the ball is simple, to do, or not to do.
Write out the big and small things, but especially the small things that you do now or have done in the past to help you feel/be successful. These small things will make up the basis of your routines. sidenote how to identify what routines you should have, not everyone should have the same routines... I spent a lot of time looking at other peoples routines and tried to pick ones that sounded like they'd benefit me, problem is, their version of success isn't the same of mine.
Keep in mind - "the only expectations you need to live up to are your own." just because someone else seems good (or natural) at routines, doesn't mean you have to be; or should be. sidenote chances are they have spent much more time practicing sticking to a routine than you have.
sidenote "why the fear of completion is holding you back from success"
sidenote the power of averages. The more input pieces you can add to the puzzle the more likely the average will be more constant. With routines, the longer the stretches of successes, the more X's on the calendar, the less the days missed will matter.
// sidenote you know you should ... but why don't you? keyword: should. Should is a word we use for things we don't ACTUALLY believe yet. We know it's good for us, we realize it's benefits. But we haven't actually proven it to ourselves yet. It is much easier to know something than to believe it. Believing, by it's nature, requires action ~ internal or external; otherwise it's just knowing.
sidenote I started this project looking for an easy answer to why it's so hard for me to start and stick to a routine; what I came to find was that answering that question isn't straightforward. It goes deep into our mental psyche. I assumed it had to do with motivation, but the real answer is found within our emotions and our expectations for ourselves.
sidenote // routines are a type of organization, if you have a hard time organizing your things, your going to find it difficult to organize your mind.
sidenote perhaps combine the above research into these three reasons. "I decided the 'slight edge' has the best framework of "reasons" to why we don't stick to routines."
The results are too far in the future. They're invisible. sidenote his use of this phrase is annoying: "that is, unless you know how to look through the lens of the slight edge." - we get it.
sidenote use this as a tool to help identify where you should build new routines into your life.
sidenote - a small routine that I really want in my life; or I have wanted for awhile; reminds me of the failure to stick with it consistently in the past. We're creatures of habit, even if we think we're not - it may just be bad habits.
sidenote Routines seem TOO easy. We look at them and say "duh I can do that, that's easy!" But never forget that it's just as easy NOT to do them, as it is to do them. So even though it's small, you must celebrate the victory. Something as simple as brushing your teeth, celebrate the consistency in which you execute. These simple things add up, understand that the routine builds momentum and you only experience the increasing benefits with the building momentum. You won't feel it in the moment, that's why you need to celebrate. If you don't celebrate the small victories, you won't appreciate them. Warning, don't use these celebrations as a "moral license" to do negative things, "I brushed my teeth so I deserve a coke", it's counter productive to your end goal. Celebrate your step towards the end goal, understanding the step was a critical step in the process of the journey.
sidenote How to identify your bad habits, and why you should identify and replace them. We all have 100s of miniature habits that fire almost every few minutes of every day. Some are good, some are bad, and some have no real consequence. It could be a pattern way of thinking, the way we unlock our phone, or how we lie to avoid conflict. These habits are always there, influencing how we live our life. Objectively we can identify them and probably point out the negative ones really quickly, but in the moment we generally do not even realize we're executing them. The most insidious ones are our instant reactions to internal or external conflict. Even if that conflict isn't negative, if it's outside of our comfort zone it will trigger a habitual reaction from us. And habitual reactions can only really be managed before they're triggered.
sidenote Find something you want to do so bad and so huge and foolish that only you and God himself understand why you're doing it. Don't look for external motivation, don't look for internal, rely on the motivation that comes from taking the first step at the base of a mountain. The step that commits you to the act. The step that frees you from needing reason. The step is an act. The act is a pledge. You may not complete your mission, you may find a better one to replace it, you may even die trying... but the point isn't completion. The point is that first step, freeing yourself from the poor excuses for reasons that drive you now, and the unneeded expectations of others
sidenote - you're the only person responsibly for your happiness, and success.
sidenote keep a list of open loops? work consistently to close them?
Don't think with your heart, don't trust your desires, trust your mind. Learn to trust the finish line more than the next step. sidenote
sidenote you ARE experiencing the results of routine right now even if you consider yourself a "free spirit" without the need of routines. If you can't put your finger on good routines, chances are you can define your bad routines. Do you constantly distract yourself with social media, put off important decisions, consistently tell white lie to avoid confrontation, avoid the gym even though you bought that gym membership? These are small-ish, ongoing, "routine" items that are negative routines that are having a cumulative effect over time on you. You often define yourself by your negative routines; I'm not good at XYZ. What if you learned how to correct your course in the moment and redefine HOW you view the 'small' things in your life?
sidenote - track the simple improvements you make every day to the "systems" and "organizations" in your life. Ex. if you're improving a funnel, track the changes you create / add / modify / optimize every day; based on feedback from your own internal system. What are you doing better in that process? Track it. keypoint
sidenote - it seems that to stick to a routine you really need a clear head. You need to separate the past and future from the task at hand, to get down to the business of execution. But we're often distracted by open loops, things from our past that we've set in motion with the intention of ending, or that need to end, yet we kept them open. Those open loops constantly interrupt our present. Keep us out of the moment. Our mind craves closure, and the more often we avoid it due to it being difficult to find, the more hurdles we are placing in our way to reaching our goals. We will use those open loops as excuses, we will look to them as reasons for our lack of success. We will let them control us, especially if we've lived our life avoiding them at all cost. These "anti-routines", negatively charge our day. They dig at our concentration constantly. In the discussion of routines the open loops take large chunks of the energy we need to execute at the top of our game. They suck motivation. They eat away at our resolve. It's best to confront them, no matter how big or how small. Our goal should be to close as many as we can as effectively as we can. It will seem overwhelming, we all have LOTS of them. Guilt is an open loop, love is often an open loop, things we said and didn't say. All open loops. Either we need to dig it up, kill it, and put it to its grave; give it a proper resting place. Or we need to accept that we're not going to be able to kill it, and forgive and forget. God is a brilliant being when he recommends we forgive and forget, holding onto things is a recipe for disaster.
sidenote { THIS is the key identifier of if you should add something to your routine. WHAT small thing, done daily, will create a landslide of effects later. WHAT small things did you do in the past can you attribute to compound effects in successful parts of your life currently? } things that are ridiculously easy to do, but just as easy not to do. - p.58 routines9
The "Just For Today" Philosophy. - It is overwhelming to consider the past (past thought = depression), and the future (future thought = anxiety) when making the decision to execute a routine. sidenote - [try not to think of routines as a decision, they're something you do- not something you chose to do.] Try and set the realistic goal of executing your routine {book is discussing being organized} "just today". You don't have to resolve all your fears, anxieties, and depression before you begin... you just have to begin. routines6 p.192