At this point in my life, I have had a change of environment and atmosphere so often that consistency has become something I strive for and crave. Only coming to university, I have realised how much I find solace and comfort in having a routine or some form of monotony. Having a routine is like mental scaffolding. It props you up so that you can achieve other things. Steps in a routine can be as simple as opening your blinds in the morning and closing them at night. I think we overlook small details of your day like that, but opening the blinds is mentally me clocking in and out of my day. It is the first and last thing that I will do.
There is more to that; having a basic set of things that you do every day means that you mentally complete tasks and you succeed at something. You know that if you follow this basic regime every day, you can be proud of yourself. In today’s society, where so many people struggle in finding serotonin, this can be a way that we find it through doing mundane and simple tasks. I wake up in the morning. I open my blinds, I go to the gym, I shower, get dressed, and have breakfast. Just by doing those things alone, I can check five things off my list and feel good about myself before 8 am. And that good feeling carries me throughout my day; I work with ease and confidence because I am happy with myself.
The thing about having a routine is that it requires consistency. This is where I struggle. Having checkpoints in your day means that there are also more opportunities where you can fail. So I didn’t go to the gym in the morning because I gave in and decided to sleep late, from as early as 6 am, my ‘ideal’ day is ruined. In addition, the mental image of what your day needs in order for you to be productive is so intricate that it can lead to failure. Through experience, if one thing goes wrong, then all these thoughts come flooding in like it would be better just to waste the day and wait for the restart or I might as well give in to destructive behaviours. And me being only human, I have days like that; I went to bed at 7 pm just waiting to re-do my day and check those boxes.
Routines can become a crutch for everyday life. Just as much as it has the power to make you feel great and productive, it can be a mental burden. Maybe I am being dramatic, and the regular person can just get over their failure and carry on with their day; however, when I have an established routine, it is life and death to stick to it. My mood becomes attached to it, my productivity and my success all wound up in keeping up simple activities in my life.
Establishing a routine can be a trial and error process, which can be exhausting. I understand that not every day can be the same, that there must be some days where you have to stray from your norm. Constantly moving houses, areas, and counties can be heartache. The feeling of constant change is dizzying. Finally, arriving at the happy place of normality and then uprooting to a new house or any new environment that means I have to change other fundamental placeholders in my life is honestly torture. I have struggled with this more than I thought this year; I have had some significant changes to where I live, my friends and my work; at a certain point, so many things were uncertain and up in the air. Not only did this make a routine hard to put in place, but there was also nothing to fall back on when my feelings on other things were fluctuating.
Perhaps I struggle to maintain a routine because I am not a structured person, which goes against my nature. Placing so much importance and emphasis on something that does not fit your life or person becomes more of a burden instead of developing a constructive trait. What if my genuinely authentic version of myself is someone who is more free-flowing, which is why I am struggling. The more I type, the more I feel that I’m just justifying not committing to productive and positive behaviours.
Well, this article was supposed to be more on the side of provoking you to implement a routine. However, it has become more of a sway in the opposite direction, reading it back. Bear in mind I am writing this past my bedtime after deciding to write off the day because I wanted to freestyle.