The Power of Routine

Honestly, I never liked the idea of routine; I always felt it was too boring and monotonous for someone like me.

That's how my lifestyle was; I had no fixed sleeping time or time for doing a workout or any other thing.

When I first learned about meditation and its potential benefits, I thought it would not be possible to do it every day; maybe meditation is not my cup of tea.

I liked the idea of doing things spontaneously, I was free, and there were no time limits.

But this lifestyle had its own disadvantages,

• I was not consistent in most of the things I used to do. I would pick something up and then give up on it, after a while.
• I was playing a small game and was far away from my potential, which made me very dissatisfied with myself.
• I was pretty lost in my career and had no idea what to do because I hardly had any skills and I had no intention of pursuing anything related to my studies.

Little by little, I ended up in a place where I knew that if I kept going the same way, it would only get worse; I needed to make a radical shift in my life.

I felt that I needed a routine and some structure and discipline in my life.

A structure that would lead me in a better direction.

So, 4 years ago, I started focusing on building that routine.

I started waking up early, planning my day, and making a timetable, something I had never done in my life, something that I would have laughed at and made fun of.

When I started living by that routine, to my surprise, I loved it from the beginning, and I felt so much better.

Here are 5 things that happened as a result of following that routine,

1.) I started focusing on my health. (mental + physical + spiritual)

To stay at the top of your game, you need to give yourself time to focus on all these different aspects of your health; if you don't, they will worsen. (given the world we live in)

Being mentally fit allowed me to look at all my fears objectively, and I had enough courage to take action to overcome my fears.

Being physically fit allowed me to stay active and healthy. It is an absolutely fantastic feeling to have a body that hardly gets tired, recovers quickly, and rarely gets sick.

Life can be very challenging at times; being spiritually healthy allowed me to let go of my hurt and resentment, forgive myself and others, and trust the process no matter what.

2.) I started gaining more clarity on what I really wanted in my life.

Because of my routine, I was consistent in reading and writing.

Writing allowed me to answer hard questions and bring more awareness to my strengths, skills, and interests.?

It also allowed me to clearly see what kind of life I want, what I prioritize the most, and, as a result of prioritizing that, what my experience will be.

Reading allowed me to widen my horizon; it gave me so many references to what is possible.

It also gave me the tools, ideas, and perspective to follow my dreams.

3.) I started learning new things/skills.

To begin with, I had no idea how to write or articulate my thoughts into sentences.?

How to write so that people would be interested in reading.

But I wanted to write, and I felt a deep desire to express myself through writing.

So, I started working on it, and in the internet age, you can learn any skill.

The only thing that will matter is how consistent you are.

4.) I started using my time much more effectively.

Because of my routine, I started using my time more effectively.

I had more time to take care of myself, I had more time to sleep, I had more time even to do nothing and sit by myself. I had more to write and could come up with more ideas to write.

I left the game of short-term gratification and spent much less time on social media.

5.) I became much happier and more content.

Having a routine and being consistent at it,

• Made me see the world very differently.
• I built much healthier beliefs about myself.
• I had a better outlook on how the world works and more trust in people.
• I became less judgemental and more compassionate.
• I started doing what I absolutely love doing.
• I became much more aware of my thoughts.

As a result, I am much happier and more peaceful.

Question of the Week

In the last newsletter, I asked the question,

What was the most important victory of 2022?

Here is my answer to it,

For me, the most important victory has to be networking, aka building connections.

It might not look like it to many people, but I am a big-time introvert.

I was never comfortable connecting with strangers and resisted doing it for the whole of my life.

I was even uncomfortable putting myself out there on social media.

But in 2022, I went to numerous networking events and connected with many people, both online and offline. It was me getting out of my comfort zone.

And it was scary in the beginning.

But I had decided to get out of my comfort zone,, and I understood it's okay to feel scared; that's actually how you face your fears by taking action while feeling scared, and that's being courageous.

Thanks to Toastmasters International , I connected with most people offline.

Thanks to LinkedIn where I connected with most people online.

Also, I feel it's actually very easy for me to network with people; at times, I even forget it was something that wasn't easy for me to do less than a year ago.

Question for the next week,

If you could live one day over and over again, what would you choose to do?

Book of the Week

"The Magic", I would say the title of the book does justice to the content of this book.

The book is solely focused on one thing, and that's gratitude.

I thought I was very grateful for everything in my life, but this book made me realize how much more is out there that I can be grateful for, things that I never paid much attention to.

One thing I have learned about gratitude is that the more you are grateful, the more you have in your life to be grateful for.

It doesn't matter if you are already grateful or struggle to be grateful; this book can be valuable for anyone.

It's also one of those books where it's less reading and more practicing.

If you want to make this whole month about gratitude, start reading it today.

This book is supposed to be read in 28 days as it includes an exercise for each day, which is perfect for the month of February.

and one last thing

You can never be enough grateful.

Love and Cheers.