Today we will cover how to get yourself into a daily routine.
First, I’m going to share the reason that you’re actually struggling with a daily routine. Next, I’m going to share with you some sample routines that I have used over the years and how to ease into them. Lastly, I’m going to share some routine hacks that have really helped me get more results in my life.
Why are you struggling with a daily routine?
This is the reason you do a routine… It is because you want more results in your life. So this is the hard truth of it if you’re struggling with a daily routine, the hard truth is you are reaffirming an identity. By not being consistent, by not having a daily routine, there is something that you are reaffirming and confirming and verifying to be true regarding you and how you see yourself. The first step of change is to change the way you describe it. If you’re someone that is constantly saying, “Yeah, I’m just not consistent, I need to get into routine,” then you’re going to keep reaffirming in your thoughts, in your choices, in your behavior, in your experiences and in your emotions, that you are not someone who’s consistent. You have so much going against you when you’re reaffirming all of those things on a daily basis.
Step one is to start to chip away at how you describe it. The number one skill that you can learn and that I believe is the number one skill that anyone can learn across any category is to see things as you wish they were before they are that way. I’m not saying you have to say I’m super consistent and lie to yourself all the time. But you have to stop reaffirming in… first in your thoughts and in your language that you’re not consistent, or you struggle with a daily routine.
When you ask yourself this question, “who do I get to continue to be by not being consistent?” Look at that answer. We need to come up with a new answer. We need to help you with who you actually want to be, because I guarantee you that who you want to be is someone who would need to be consistent and need to have a daily routine. Whether you’re wanting to get better at the piano or dancing or have a better relationship or be in better shape or make more money, all of those things are going to come from you showing up in a certain way over and over and over. It’s not one act, it’s not one time that you do something and then voila, you’re that amazing dancer or in a relationship, etc. You have to do things consistently. It’s spending more time with who you actually want to be than reaffirming who you’ve been.
Research shows us that we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day and 90% of them are the same thoughts we had the day before. For you to learn and actually start doing a new routine. It’s very little about learning what the routine is…..see, that’s false. That’s a false way of change. Are you just learning about a new routine? No, you have to first learn about yourself.
You have to look at what are your thoughts that are leading to your choices, to your behaviors, to your experiences to your emotions.
You have to look at all of those things. First start with changing your thoughts. Start to challenge yourself. If you do one thing, if you do one thing consistently, do this, start in the morning, by taking note of what your thoughts are, what thoughts do you no longer want to think? And what thoughts, actions and feelings do you want to have for the day? This is something I do every single morning. What this will do, is it will help you see where you are having negative thoughts, where you are having negative emotions that you don’t want to have and start to help you craft what you do want to have. You see until you’re the observer of your thoughts, you’re on autopilot. We’re thinking the same thing. We’re doing the same thing. We’re being the same person, we’re feeling the same thing. We’re the same. A lot of this training, by the way, comes from one of my mentors, Dr. Joe Dispenza. I’ve learned so much from him but I’ve learned the science of change is first for you to overcome yourself, you have to know yourself.
If you’ve been inconsistent, if you’ve been that person that has the identity of not being consistent, of not having a daily routine, what I would suggest against is don’t all of a sudden come up with a two hour routine. Right? Like okay, I’m going to get at it tomorrow and I’m going to do two hours of work. I wouldn’t go there. What I would start to do is start to alter your identity by challenging your thoughts, like I mentioned before, and start with one, maybe two things, okay?
Here are some sample routines that I have used over the years.
Now, depending on what you’re trying to change in your life, the only reason to have a routine is because you want change, you want some kind of new result in your life. Take a look at…what is it that you’re wanting? Is it to be in better shape? Is it to be stronger? Is it faster? Is it to make more money? Is it to be happier? I would look at, what are one to two things that if you started doing today would move you closer to your goal. For example, here on this blog and our YouTube channel, we talk a lot about home business. After I lost it all in the real estate market and was broke, I was in foreclosure, I was depressed…it was tough times, really tough times. The routine that I embraced was I had to prospect a certain number of people each day, I had to do a video each day and I had to do self development each day. I went from not being consistent, not having a great daily routine to doing three things a day. But I knew that if I did those three things, success was inevitable. I wanted to get out of the financial hole, I wanted to get out of foreclosure, I wanted to make more money, I wanted to get to a much better financial place. I did it by doing three things every day. All of a sudden, I started making more money and within five months, I was at 10,000 a month, at seven months 40,000 a month, 10 months 50,000 a month, went on to make millions with that company, and totally changed my life, my entire financial future because of three things I did each and every day.
Look at what result, what new result do you want in your life?
If it’s happiness, maybe you have a gratitude list. Maybe every morning, you write out a gratitude list. Maybe you send appreciation to 10 people a day, right, five people a day. Come up with a routine that if you’re going from being inconsistent, and you want to be consistent, don’t make hours and hours of a routine, pick two to three things. What are two to three things that if I did every day, it would move me closer to that goal.
Let’s hear from you!
Before we get to my last point, which is so powerful, I would love to hear from you. What are you getting out of this post? Does it help you to think about what you may be affirming in your identity by not being consistent, because that’s kind of a different way. Most people, they’re going to teach you a daily routine and here’s why you want to do it and here’s how great it is. But let’s first examine you. Let’s first examine your thoughts and how you’ve been showing up. Because that’s really important for you to know yourself to overcome yourself. So I would love to hear from you, what’s been helpful so far?
Routine hacks that have really helped me get more results in my life.
When I think about routine hacks, I think about high leverage activity. I think about what I can do that if done, gets me a great return, right. There’s several activities that I have identified. For example, if you’re wanting to stay in good shape, or get in good shape, there was a study that came out I think, a couple of years ago, and it said that after eating, if you only walked for 15 minutes, you would cut the blood sugar intake by 50%. That’s a high leverage activity. So anytime that I eat, I’m looking for Okay, can I do some stairs? Can I go walking? Can I ride a bike? Can I do something, because I know that’s a high leverage activity. The difference is, if I just go walking for 15 minutes just randomly it’s better than nothing, right? Get your 10,000 steps, but if I do it after I eat, I’m cutting off the negative effects of that eating by 50%. It’s crazy. That’s a high leverage activity.
Another one that I have identified and I do this every single night is nighttime visualization. When you go to bed, right, that’s for most people, that’s when that’s the only time that their brain waves change, they go from beta to alpha to possibly deeper. That’s when your subconscious kicks in. Well, if you spend time visualizing, if you start seeing yourself as having the things you want in your life before bed, you’re actually giving instructions to your subconscious to help you more be like that person. That’s a very high leverage activity. Think about it like this… and if you’ve studied law of attraction, if you’ve studied quantum physics, if you studied different studies they’ve done around intention, then you know this is very powerful stuff. But imagine if you had a supercomputer in your home, and every day, you got one press of that supercomputer and it would help move you toward everything you want in your life. Well, the fact is, you have that supercomputer, it’s your subconscious but you’re not giving it instructions and you’re not being intentional with it. A lot of people watch the news….murder violence, politicians, all the negative stuff. Then they go to sleep and they wonder why they have a crummy day the next day, why they have nightmares, why they have bad dreams.
Before you go to bed, visualizing who you want to be, how would it feel? How would you know what’s true? What would that look like, is an extremely powerful exercise to help you get more things of what you actually want.
High leverage every morning, I mentioned this earlier, I journal my thoughts. I know that if I wake up in the morning, and I just don’t think about my thoughts, and I just go about my day, then I’m just going to tumble through the day and whatever comes…comes. But no, I actually set my intentions for the day. When I wake up in the morning, I meditate and then I journal. I journal, what are the thoughts I no longer want to have? What are the thoughts I do want to have? How do I want to show up today? It makes me look at the day before and see, was I kind? Was I present? Was I loving? Did I show up the way I wanted to? Did I play big? Or did I shrink? Was I antisocial? Was I disinterested? How did I show up because I don’t want to repeat that today? Was I an undisciplined eater? Did I overeat, do I indulge? I want to note that the next day, I want to pay attention to that. So I don’t repeat that same pattern. Whatever results you’re trying to look at, and I may not have given you the example for what you’re looking for, but I would look at, okay, what are high leverage activities that if done on a daily basis would really help me get there faster.
Want your new life and results faster?
Now, one of the greatest ways to increase your consistency and you being a part of a daily routine and really showing up is having more accountability in your life. We have an accountability coaching program where you are actually reporting in and you are held accountable for showing up. That little bit of pressure can help you start to transform yourself and show up differently. When you start doing it and you are accountable for so long, all of a sudden, you’re a different person. If you would like to learn more about that here is the link, higdongrouptraining.com. It explains the program to you. You just fill out your information and we will reach out to you.
Ray Higdon
Play Bigger. Make An Impact.
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