Photo and design via Canva.
A little more than two weeks ago I announced my intention to form a new routine and keep it going for 30 days straight. I did this with the hopes of making that 30-day effort the starting point on a new path toward my own creative and health-fueled goals.
Halfway through, I’ve learned some things.
Things about myself. Things about my mind, my habitual thought patterns and mindset, and also about what’s actually possible.
This won’t be a lengthy report, but I felt, having crossed that halfway mark, it’d be good to provide a little bit of a progress update. Also, fair warning here: this post is sprinkled with moderately profane language.
What I planned
The actual plan I’d formed in my head was simple. I split this into a sort of a routine sandwich, if you will. A two-part effort with a morning routine and a nighttime routine, ideally scheduled as such:
Morning
- Wake up at 5 a.m. every day
- Run three miles
- Write (fiction in progress: short story, novel, etc.)
- Meditate 20 minutes
- Get ready for the day
Night
- Write (fiction in progress: short story, novel, etc.)
- Write (blog, newsletter)
- Update (social media, email, etc.)
- Read then bed
I approached this fully with an open mindset, but before Day 1 told myself, “Yes, this will be it, you will wake up tomorrow and every day from here on out your habits will be set and you will breeze through this 30 days like it were nothing, it will be easy and doable.”
Clearly this went as expected.
What actually happened
Turns out, going cold from one mindset to another overnight is (brace yourself, this is a shocker) PRETTY FUCKING HARD TO DO.
Yes, well, especially when the mind is quite used to and comfy with the old ways of stagnant sitting and aimless web surfing and “I’ll do it tomorrow”-ing when it comes to facing oneself and finally moving forward with listening to that creative hum deep down that’s begging to be heard.
It’s no easy task to just stop one thing and start another, thinking that’s it, you’ll never fall back on old habits. Plenty of others have learned this, and I’ve read that others have learned this, but apparently I needed to learn this one for myself.
But all this negativity aside, the effort thus far has not been at all a failure. Despite not keeping with some kind of stringent formulaic routine like I’d planned, this push has became a dance with the monkey mind, and it’s been a fun one. It got to the point where I finally said to myself, “Fine. Fucking FINE. You’re going to push back on me this much? Fine. Guess what, we’re doing this anyway. It’s scary, yes, it’s uncomfortable, hell yes, but we need to do this every damn day, we need to do something every day.”
And I did.
Every day.
Every day I wrote. It hasn’t always been a lot, and it sure as hell hasn’t always been great. But I’ve been successfully blogging as a result of this (and have been beyond grateful and taken back by the initial response). I’ve launched a newsletter. I’ve started an email list (to which I would love for you to join…step this way, if you feel so inclined). I revamped a journal and logbook effort.
Every day I did some kind of physical activity. This started as running. I wanted to run every day. But I found out this was not feasible. Not because I couldn’t physically do it. Not because I was making excuses. But because I had to prioritize. And this meant putting writing and my creative efforts first. I had to do this stuff first, because otherwise I’d be putting it off. And because I put that stuff first, running became harder to fit into my schedule.
So to balance it out I put together a modified bodyweight routine, with alternating exercises on alternating days. I found that this was actually easier to fit into my morning routine and flow. Not only does it kick my ass arguably more than a morning run, but it surprisingly calms my mind just as equally, and puts me in a more grounded state of mind for the rest of the day.
So, while this routine-building effort hasn’t turned out to be the well-crafted machine I hoped it would be, it’s actually turning into something a bit more real — an organic, living exercise that is based on my own mindset. It breathes how I breathe. It grows how I grow.
If I make sure these things happen every day, this new mindset continues to build, it starts to set its feet deep into the ground, firmly, and solid. It is the evolving of something new. This is more than what I could have asked for. And the biggest thing I’m getting from all of this?
I’m learning how my mind works.
This is something I wish I’d learned long ago. But it’s made a massive difference for me to come to this realization, and I’m finding now that it has been through action that I’ve come to this understanding.
What happens next?
I move onward, that’s what. And by that I mean I take this beautiful mess and try to make some order of it.
My hope, by the end of these 30 days, is I’ll have been able to assemble some kind of regular timely routine out of the chaos, and ideally I’ll get things started at 5 a.m. daily.
Either way, it does not stop at this point — it merely curves along, deeper into the unknown. But that’s where it gets more interesting.
Things are just beginning.
