How did ‘routine’ get such a bad name?
Anyone whoever got good at ANYTHING –any skill, craft, any sport, any instrument or any discipline– didn’t do ‘a little bit today’, then say ‘I can’t be bothered’ the next 3 days, then ‘go hard’ the next day to make up for the last 3 days, then ‘fuck it, I’ll take it easy for the next few days because you know, I went hard yesterday’…
They did what they have to do even if they couldn’t be fucked.
If your routine sucks though, alright, I get it. That’s a good time to break the routine –to create a new and better one.
And another good thing about working out a good routine that, once it becomes part of your day just like brushing your teeth, even on days which felt like a waste, without realising, you actually still did something, and achieved something.
The other day was one of those days for me. I went to bed and thought, ‘I did nothing today’ but because of my daily routine, I had still sat outside and read from the book I do every morning (The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday), did some weights, wrote a blog post, played with my dog Chunky, meditated (my version of it that is: going outside and staring up at the night sky for a few minutes) and wrote in my diary.
Same thing goes for the word ‘discipline’. It conjures up such negative images of strict and pushy fathers or the military. But you combine a routine which improves you, with the discipline to follow it every single day, everyday everyday everyday everyday everyday everyday erryday erryday EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN DAY, that’s how you get stuff done. AND you get better at it too.