Habits and Rituals | Finding your Non-negotiable
I thought it would be really fun to start a blog series on creating different habits and rituals! It will also help with me creating the habit of writing more than just instagram captions, e-mails, and text messages!
Finding balancing and being able to show up and produce my best work as a creative is something that is super important to me. (So much so that I started a Podcast on the subject…You can view some episodes below!)
During the month of July I took on some big challenging projects. I loved doing it, but it put me in a season where I couldn’t really do my normal daily tasks, I pretty much woke up and went to sleep editing these commercial video and photo projects. Once I finished those projects, and slipped back into my normal routines in August, it made me see how much value creating habits and rituals are for your overall wellbeing that I wanted to create a little blog series about it.
One thing that is for certain, is that life happens, and we can’t ALWAYS do these things, but it does make a difference in your productivity when you do.
My first piece of advice in this series is to find ONE non-negotiable and attach a reason WHY. Knowing why you are doing something gives you more accountability. If you want to lose 5lbs, you will end up eating that slice of cake…but if you want to lose 5lbs so that you feel more comfortable in your swimsuit in front of your friends come summer, you’ll be less tempted to.
I’m going to share two different non-negotiable and my whys.
1 | French Pressing Coffee in the morning
This ritual actually started when I was in college. I was spending so much money and wasting SO much time trying to get to a coffee drive-thru before heading to class. This morning hustle made me so irritable throughout the rest of the day. (Especially when I realized I’m too late for class to even grab coffee!) My why, was if I started my mornings without a rush, maybe I wouldn’t be so stressed through the day. So I purchased a French Press and would wake up and take that time to be by myself and start my morning slow. After pressing the coffee, I had enough time to sit in my backyard (which was way more appealing than morning traffic!). Starting my mornings slowly, gave me the right amount of focus to take on the rest of my day.
2 | Walking for 30 Minutes
After years, of pressing my coffee in the morning, it became more of a habit, I don’t think about it, it is just what I do, once this happens, it is easier to add another task. Working from home, I spend a LOT of time in front of my computer! I go from laying down sleeping, to sitting, back to laying down. I started having the hardest time falling asleep, and just noticed poor choices in my eating habits and overall health! I hate running, and pretty much most forms of exercising that isn’t dancing, but I told myself I would at least walk for at least 30 minutes in the morning. Doing this one task gave me the enthusiasm to look into gyms, buy my first bike, make healthier decisions about food, spend less money, and most importantly get into better sleeping habits.
The biggest reasons why people break and postpone better habits is because they give themselves TOO many tasks, and once you don’t accomplish one, you end up feeling like it is okay to drop the ball on the rest of them. If you find yourself saying, NEXT Monday I am going to start eating better, going to the gym 3 times a day, never going to sleep with dishes in the sink, and….. instead try to find ONE pain point in your life (like stressing buying coffee in the morning) and you’ll be amazed on how solving one little problem can bring you to solving your next.