I am a big believer in tweaking rather than radically changing things up (although I did move to Japan on short notice and dropped everything to spend three months in Spain, and quit university to become a dancer).
At this stage of the game when we are inundated by stuff telling us how to live our lives moment by moment, from the time we put down our phone to the time we rise, and those most crucial waking hours, we are flooded with shoulds!
No one asked us about our life. We all seem to fit into a mold that is capable of forsaking our comfortable if not completely healthy morning routine to meditate, exercise, journal have a cold shower, discuss something in depth with a wise person, go for a walk to ponder the universe and then make a multi-ingredient smoothie to sip while still avoiding our emails and news feed.
Some of my clients take five minutes to dash from bed to mascara to lip gloss to the car!
I had a routine that got scrunched the busier I got. My routine had originally allowed for plenty of time for coffee and chat with my partner, meditation, work on my novel, some working out on a cross-trainer and then that cold shower.
This all lasted for a bit until my schedule filled up and I had to be out the door by 8:30. (I understand many of you have days that start way earlier.) Anyway the dog walk got shoved to the end of the routine, news feed took over and we still had our coffee together since it has been an ongoing tradition for about 18 years now.
With best of intentions I could not shift my ass out of coffee time into get ready for work and walk the dog time. Dog got ripped off and I was invariable just-on-time for my first client of the day.
I did a little self reflection and came to realize novel writing-cold shower-cross trainer-meditating time had become check the weather network and then get completely distracted down the internet rabbit-hole-until-coffee time.
I tweaked. My dog needs his walk; I signed that contract when he came to live with us. He slammed it down on the floor and made me leave my paw print. Now I get up early and we are out for our leisurely walky-joggy thing by six thirty. This covers dog, exercise, meditation, happy thoughts, lungs full of fresh air and time enough to arrive home for coffee, treats and no guilty mad dash out the door.
I’m hoping I can somehow inspire you to tweak if you are in a rut right now. The answer might be less complicated than you think!
The Movable Beast 