Importance In Routine

Leo Babauta presented a very interesting talk titled, Mindfulness: The Key to Habit Change. He stressed how important it is to convert our goals into habits. When we focus on goals, on the future, we often get stuck in: procrastination, rationalisation and self talk. We need to put our goals into our routine. For example, every sunday morning we will exercise before breakfast as part of the routine. Or every wed night we will write in our journal. The idea is we pick a goal and force it to become a habit, so that it won’t be a decision every time we need to do it.

In Tal Ben Shachar’s talks about positive psychology, given at Harvard, he discussed the importance in setting routines. Tal, like Leo, addressed the importance in using habits to create change, but he referred to habits that help promote positive thinking and positive state of being. Most people associate habits, or routines, as something boring, something that prevents spontaneity and fun. By working positive psychology habits into part of the day, such as listing things we’re grateful for, helps us be more happy, fulfilled people, and doesn’t negatively impact spontaneity, in fact it can energise us to do more.