Routines Are Rituals Of Devotion To Yourself

Something I’ve become a huge advocate for is routines. I have a morning routine that helps me prime my day with mindfulness, prayer, social connection, and movement. I have an end of work day wrap up routine where I organize my notes from the day, add information into my systems, and plan for the next day. And I have an evening routine where I reflect on the day, track my performance, do some light journaling, and set intentions for the next day.  If you want to check out my Daily Check In works, I’ve got a video explaining it here!

What I’m also highly aware of is that over time routines become… Routine. Eventually they no longer carry the same novelty and you become less and less engaged. By definition, something is routine when it can be done thoughtlessly and habitually. Through the brain’s preferred process of automaticity, what used to be done consciously can now be done on autopilot. The outcome is, whatever practices are part of your routine are more like “checking the box” than serving you at the level you want them to.

An alternative perspective to consider is: Treat routines as rituals of devotion to yourself.

The difference between doing something to do it, and doing something as a ritual of devotion to yourself, comes down to these two things: Intention and presence. When you choose to show up for a morning routine, recognize it as a commitment to self-love and your self-care. You don’t need to do it, you’re choosing to invest time in doing it because you want to. Because your mind and body deserve it. Doing it this way is anything but routine and automatic.

And when life starts to squeeze your routines out, know what’s at stake. In many cases you’re choosing what the world wants from you over what you want for yourself. What kind of precedent does that set? 

That’s why the intention setting practice I mentioned is so important. There will certainly be days where the best choice is to not complete the routine you’ve committed to. As I’m preparing this, today was one of those days. I have important errands to run for my wife and grandma, work I want to get ahead of so I can enjoy a long weekend, and lots of travel time in the car. 

For all of those reasons, I chose to not complete my morning routine today and invest my time doing other things. Does that mean I deprioritized devoting time to myself today? Maybe. But it also reinforces the intention… Where when I sit down to do it that’s because I’m choosing myself above all else.

But I am not compromising my night-time review tonight. I will certainly be devoting that time to myself. And again if you want to see the routine I’ve built around my Daily Check In, you can check it out here!

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