Routines Matter in Chasing Goals
We were just home for the holidays. It was the first time my entire family had gotten together in over two years. As is natural during these kinds of gatherings, we had lots of catching up to do. At one point my sister-in-law came over to me and told me that she and my brother were signed up for a half marathon in March.
I was thrilled. I love it when people go after hard things.
With two kids—2 and 4 years old—she was worried about fitting it all in. I get it. Our lives are full and while adding something new can sound like a great idea, it can also bring in concerns of how.
From my experience I’ve learned that if your goal is meaningful to you, come hell or high water, you’ll find the time.
“Yeah, I’m going to start getting up early in the New Year. What time do you get up?”
“My alarm goes off at 4:20 every morning. I’m out of bed by 4:30.” I said.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
1. Know What You’re Going To Do
I look forward to my mornings. With an 11-month old coupled with two adults in the house trying to navigate building businesses, working full-time, and training for carefully staggered Ironman triathlons, my mornings serve as the quiet before the storm. I’ve always enjoyed the mornings, though. And, for those people who look at me bewildered—like my sister-in-law—maybe I have that going for me when it comes to early morning routines.
But, I’ve learned a few things over the years of whittling away at my morning routine. Namely, know exactly what you are going to do, each day of the week, when the alarm goes off. And, if morning routines aren’t your thing, the same principle applies: to build effective routines, know exactly what you do each day of the week at set times.
In doing so, there are no question marks about what you are doing in a day that is inevitably filled with endless options.
Here’s the first few hours of my days during the week:
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: sip coffee and read from 4:30–5am, leave the house at 5:05am for swim practice that goes from 5:30–7am, family walk from 7:30–8:15am, followed by a family breakfast from 8:15–9am. My wife takes our son to daycare while I pick up the house so that we can both start working by 9:30am.
Tuesday and Thursday: sip coffee and write from 4:30–6am, get on my bike from 6:15–7:30am, and then segue into our walk, breakfast, daycare routine.
Saturday mimics Tuesday and Thursday since swim practice doesn’t start until 6:30am. I’m out the door by 6:05am.
Sunday is dedicated to long runs, which are usually a family affair. Since our son sleeps until 7am—yes, we’ve routinized him, too—I get bonus time for coffee and writing.
Seven days of the week, I know exactly what I’m going to do each morning. There are no question marks. And, in an odd way, I look forward to the uniqueness of each of those mornings.
Maybe it’s my obsessive nature.
Maybe it’s my proclivity for perfectionism.
Or, maybe it just makes damn good sense…
2. Avoid the Noise
…because I’ve made the mistake too many times to know what happens when I don’t know what I’m going to do in the morning.
My world—I’m guessing like yours—is filled with endless options of things to do:
My phone is a great distractor.
So are all the books that fill my bookshelves.
Or the websites that I check on a daily basis that, without fail, lead me down some rabbit hole that I never planned on—nor cared anything about.
The tiny messes in our home that need to be cleaned up are also tempting.
So are looming work deadlines.
Or, gosh, those Rubik’s cubes that sit on my desk.
The guitar next to our bookshelves would be so much fun.
Oh, I could keep going.
My Point: there is so much in our world that creates noise and, no matter how firm your goals are, the noise can be more enticing than the behavioral habits that you have to develop if you want to make any progress toward those goals.
I think Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, says it best:
“If everything is important, then nothing is.”
Noise creates ambiguity.
Ambiguity creates question marks.
And question marks are the nemesis of your goals.
3. Give Yourself Space
Know that a routine doesn’t happen instantly.
I recently wrote how chasing after goals involves embracing ambiguity at the outset. This goes with a daily routine, too.
The mess—the ambiguity—is real because the noise is real.
But, this can be solved quickly if you know your goals.
When you know your goals, you can simply ask yourself:
“What behaviors need to take place that will help me make progress toward my goals?”
Once you identify the behaviors, simply fill your days with those behaviors.
See which ones stick and see which ones are unrealistic to maintain on certain days or at certain hours of the day.
For example, I’ve learned overtime that it’s an unrealistic ask of myself to jump on my bike by 4:45am. My body needs time to marinate in the morning. The morning routine that I listed above took 11 months to develop. Out of necessity last January when our son was born, I fell into a wake time of 4:30am because it was my time to take over parenting duties as my wife had been up nursing throughout the night. Slowly, over the past 11 months, I figured out what worked and what didn’t. Now, I don’t even have to think about what I do each day.
But, I sure did in the beginning.
There are going to be question marks in the beginning.
This is normal.
Give yourself space to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
4. Don’t Quit
In looking back on 2021, this was my biggest life lesson. I’ve quit so many damn things in my life that quitting became a habit. It’s taken me 41 years to realize the impact that quitting has had on my life.
And, that’s what I’ll leave you with when it comes to routine: Don’t quit.
Remain persistent in striving to determine your routine.
Trust me, it will eventually happen. It took me 11 months.
When you have a feeling that you’re on autopilot seven days a week—and you’re excited about each day of the week—you’ve made it.
And, along the lines of quitting, don’t quit what you’re doing during your routine.
It’s 5:48am right now. I have 12 minutes to go before I need to start the process getting onto my bike. I’ve kind of hit my writing limit and I want to be done. But, I keep pushing because I know that it’s bringing me closer to my goal: currently to get four blog posts up this week.
Quitting puts me behind—even if it’s just a little bit.
Quitting also sits heavy with me throughout the day.
Neither is beneficial.
When chasing after your goals, don’t do things that intentionally put you behind or, more importantly, make you question your worth by filling you with tiny bits of shame.
You’ve likely told that story before.
Goals are all about telling a different story—one that you know you can be telling or you wouldn’t have set the damn goal for yourself.
“That’s what’s worked for me,” I said to my sister-in-law.
And I’ll be curious to learn what works for her.
After all, that’s the only thing that really matters: that which works for you.
