Top 3 Ways to Stick to Your Routine
Mental health and well-being go hand-in-hand with a solid routine. Why is that the case? Well, with the chaos of life, it can sometimes feel impossible to remain consistent during the day. This is especially true for people who work from home or go to school part-time because they don’t have a consistent schedule. Luckily, there are three ways to make consistency easier and to learn how to stick to a routine that will last.
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1. Stop Seeing Everything in Back and White
Sometimes people think that if everything didn’t get done, nothing was accomplished. If you are one of those people, you may need to think about changing your whole perspective on routines (maybe on life in general, too). It is important to take adding tasks to your routine one step at a time.
For example, you may want to focus on brushing your teeth every morning and night as a first step and then add another task only after you have achieved that goal for a few weeks. That way, you are not trying to do everything at once and feeling like you have failed.
2. Accept Your Failures as Steps in Your Journey--Fail Forward
Making a routine at first, even a baby step, may not always work out. There are many reasons why you may fail at establishing a new routine item: you may need to be on the right medication to achieve your goal, you may have taken on too much too quickly, or you may even have to start setting alarms on your phone or writing things down on the fridge.
What’s important is remembering that a failure is just another step towards achieving your goal. It, therefore, is not truly a failure, but an important part of your path towards finally making a routine that lasts.
Avoid judging yourself and start to be kind to yourself. Don’t be afraid of starting over.
3. Don’t Knock it Til’ You Try it
You may wake up and say, “I can barely go to work today, so there’s no way I’m going to the gym afterward.” Then you may skip packing your gym outfit and just head out to work. It is important to note that later on, you may feel differently. Therefore, canceling an activity that benefits your wellbeing should only be done as a last resort. The benefits of going and completing the workout outway the negative connotations associated with your bad mood.
This is a similar thought as something like doing the dishes. If you want to change how you usually clean the kitchen but find yourself without the motivation, sometimes all you need to do is to start. Try to work on the task for at least five minutes before you give up on it completely.
Routines Are an Important Part of Our Mental Health Care
By using these three tips to improve your routine, hopefully, you will be able to improve your ability to repeat important tasks each day. Some things to focus on adding to your routine are hygiene, working out, eating healthy, getting fresh air, keeping in touch with family and friends, and religious practice or meditation. There’s a reason why we must try so hard to achieve these goals: routines are extremely important to our mental wellbeing and essential to learning to live with good mental health.
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Sources
https://www.self.com/story/mental-strategies-to-stick-with-exercise-routine