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You’ve probably read lots of articles on routines or rituals for happiness. What about success routine rituals that get you to where you want to go?
Research shows that routine rituals work, even for those who don’t believe in them!
If you’re wondering about the difference between the two, it’s basically the attitude behind them.
Which is why routines and rituals are a perfect partnership for creating co-ordinated successful actions behind what needs to be done in your day and what is a meaningful practice.
We have all sorts of routine rituals; my day would be totally out of whack if it didn’t start with my morning cuppa. That’s a routine ritual for me.
It’s a simple routine whilst also being a meaningful practice for me because it sets the tone for my day. Relaxed yet alert.
Routine rituals foster the habits that are likely to get you to where you want to go and disentangle your mind and actions from those things that hold you back.
But where to begin? Why at the beginning of course.
1. Success routine rituals you already have
What’s your success routine? Do you set your alarm for the same time each day? Do you avoid your phone or computer first thing in the morning? Do you have a way to fire up your mind?
You might have a meditation ritual, or an exercise ritual, or a journalling routine that sets your day up with a meaningful practice.
Whatever your routine rituals, they are the key to creating good and lasting habits.
After all we want success in whatever area we put our attention on. And it doesn’t have to be about your job or career or any usual ways of defining success..
My daughter is a classically trained actress, having trained in one of the U.K’s best drama schools. And after graduation, she worked consistently in theaters at home and in the States.
People often asked me if she was a success.
They didn’t add, was she a success in her career, simply asking me the question” Is she a success.”
They made the assumption I would think they were asking about her job. As though this was the only criteria for success. Which it isn’t. For any of us.
My response was always. A success at what? Her career? Her life? A successful human being?
Sooner or later our definition of what we want to be successful at or in varies.
And whatever it means to you right now, you’d probably like it fast, please!
So here’s a little secret: success doesn’t start at the beginning of your day.
2. The evening success routine ritual
You need to be prepared before the insanity of the day starts. Before needs, wants, desires and demands are placed on you.
Before the competition between what gets your attention first begins.
If you want to make your day happier than cute kitten videos, and I suspect you do, build a customized routine ritual that will give you a productivity reboot.
This sounds cool, but maybe you need a few more thoughts on evening rituals.
Focus on what your best feeling would be about your day tomorrow. Feeling you are a success brings determination and persistence.
Plus a spiritual bonus: Feeling successful, and assuming you are successful calls that experience into being.
Write down your biggest goal for tomorrow based on what accomplishes the most with the least amount of effort.
See yourself focused on it until its happy completion.
Follow through by using your imagination to see your day unfolding easily and successfully. Your most important task accomplished.
More on evening rituals here
3. Manage your mood
Managing feelings is essential to your success.
Practicing optimism is a way of managing your feelings or emotions. Even the most pessimistic among us can find ways to become more optimistic.
And here’s some ways you can create feel-good experiences for yourself.
- Expect something wonderful to happen every day.
- Avoid depressing people who complain relentlessly.
- Tune out the negative news that makes you mad.
- Adopt a regular attitude of gratitude. There’s always a little something to be glad about.
- Don’t waste your energy pushing against things you can’t change.
- Remember the best is yet to come.
4. Match your day to your energy levels
I don’t know about you, but first thing in the morning I’m more in touch with my creative mind. My energy level is high and distractions are low.
But sometime after 2pm I’m ready for a more mindless activity or I need a longish break.
If this is you, stop for a snack or a power nap if you can, or just go off and sit or lie quietly.
So you’ve given yourself an afternoon break. Now what?
Busy work. Shift your objective from creativity to busy work at whatever time your energy is low.
The afternoon is definitely the time I seek out those busy, mindless tasks that need doing, but bore me to bits.
Create a success routine ritual that allows you to match your energy and mindset with the demands of the day.
5. Pay attention to the zzzz’s
You can’t cheat yourself on sleep, it cripples every aspect of life, your thinking, your ability to focus, even your memory, and yes your success in getting to where you want to go in life.
According to brain research, not paying enough attention to sleep and the benefits thereof basically makes us stupid! Ouch.
Check this out for brain rules that affect your whole life.
World class performers who had boundless energy to spare understood the value of sleep. People like Van Gogh, or Mayo Angelou, or Alexander Graham Bell were morning people, not night owls.
Most had a routine of waking early, working till noon, taking a long break and getting back to work until dinner time. Then they were done for the day.
You and I might not be world class performers, (yet!) but we are world class beings in our own world and deserve to live our best life by not cutting corners when it comes to sleep.
At the end of the day losing out on sleep means losing out on part of the life balance that keeps our mind, body and soul healthy.
5. Easy success routine rituals for getting stuff done
You’ve got your priorities straight, you set up your day the night before, so shouldn’t that be it?
Nope. There are a few more easy routine rituals for success you can create that make your day great.
- Use email instead of voice mail. It’s less time consuming.
- Limit distractions, especially at your peak creativity times.
- Keep track of how you spend time. You’ll be surprised, I know I was.
- Remember the eighty twenty rule.
- Always do the twenty percent of tasks that bring eighty percent of your results. Not always easy for me, but I’m getting better.
So how to bring this all together to get to where we want to be.
It might not be easy for all of us to dictate our daily schedule…stuff happens.
But we can stop focusing on just allowing the day to unfold randomly. And we can stop pretending we’re in charge of everything, when clearly we’re not.
Setting up your success routine rituals, be they these I’ve shared or your own, will create the habits that make life simpler, more balanced and successful.
Not to mention get you to where you want to go in life without being thwarted by way too much struggle.
And if at the end of the day you didn’t get everything done (and you probably won’t) you won’t feel so bad, because you did the things that mattered most to you that day and had the energy and motivation to do them well.
Encourage one another.
Love Elle
xox
P.S How about you? Got any ideas for more routine rituals for success in your world that you’d like to share with the rest of us? Let us know in the comments below. We are all blessed with your insights.
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6 Comments
Hello Elle!
These are so important! It’s just too easy to get lost in distraction or addressing other people’s priorities! I really like to remember the 80/20 rule too. I use my planner to help me stay on track and organized, but I don’t have an evening ritual, I don’t usually plan the night before, which is a great idea. Thanks for these ideas!
True confession Sandra. I use these routine rituals and can still get bogged down before I’m even aware it’s happened. And I have to work at deciding where the 80/20 rule would work best for my projects. But it’s okay, we’re only being human. And getting any routine/ritual under your belt on a daily basis is a great win in my book. 🙂
Love the rituals you have shared here Elle! I’m taking notes to make my 2021 more successful 🙂
Hi Zeenat – may your 2021 be wonderfully successful, happy and healthy. 🙂
You make such good points here about success. It IS NOT defined by your job. Too often that is how we define it, and it is why so many of us are not happy in life. My son, who has a Masters degree in counseling, recently quit a job because he was not happy, they were asking him to go against his values in many ways, and he did not feel like he could add value to the clients. He apologized and was so distraught at “being a failure”. I told him that putting his happiness and values first was a success in my book.
I love the story about your son Debbie. Many congratulations to him for choosing who he is over what he was doing. It’s certainly a brave and courageous step to take. He’s a huge success in my book too. 🙂