The RING to Routine
“The Secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine” — Mike Murdock
Routine is something embedded in human life. Some of us acknowledge the importance of routine while a lot of us end up castigating the routine and end up looking for avenues which bring the mundane process in our daily lives. Routine can have different forms for different people. For a student, it could be waking up, attending classes, hanging out with friends, completing the assignments, and sleeping. A sportsperson could have a defined routine in the form of training for certain hours, eating a fixed amount of food, doing mental conditioning and repeat. A working professional will have a routine in the form of going to office and working, taking power breaks, spending time with family and repeat.
The definition of routine is not well defined and completely depending on the sphere individual is involved in. This is the ideal world, and everyone is running by the mill in this routine. A lot of people in the world look for ways to break the routine out of inner frustration of not doing anything different and often attribute their stagnancy (which is not there) to being absorbed in the routine. The reality is that routine is the only secret recipe for success in every sphere of life and there is a specific RING to this routine which can indicate why routine is more important as compared to doing something different.
1. Rigidity- The rigidity in one’s plans and ability to stay unmoved in the event of ups and downs is something which comes associated with routine. It enables an individual to be rigid in their quest for success and ensure that they do not end up adopting a level of flexibility that divert them from their goals.
2. Insight — Traditionally, routine indicates that the individual is doing the same set of tasks everyday and not learning anything new. Routine enables an individual to gain insights on each of the granular tasks on a daily level and ultimately allows the individual to become even better in what they are doing. There is never a perfection in any task and the insight aspect to routine allows an individual to head towards perfection in their domain.
3. Neglect- There will always be external and internal noise that can deter an individual to pull themselves back. The key to success is to keep rolling and the routine allows one to neglect any noise that come in the path towards one’s goals. The ability of routine to make any noise or hurdles negligible is a great testament to the value it brings in our lives.
4. Grit — Following a routine requires a lot of grit. It is easy for humans to get bored by doing the same thing repeatedly and just observing minuscule gains in their metrics they set out to achieve. All one needs to do is have the grit to believe in the process of routine and keep perspiring in the same routine. The incremental gains observed in the human success metrics will compound over time and one would wonder how such success just came by.
This gives a nice RING to Routine but adopting this RING is the key to all treasures that one can experience in life. The greatest olympian Michael Phelps was a big believer of routine and this video from him truly captures the RING to the routine all of us should be seeking.
