The Magic of Habits, Routines, and Rituals with Sharon Dantzger
What can we do to get a greater sense of control in our lives? When I talked to Sharon Danzger, she suggested that habits, routines, and rituals can help.
You can watch the entire conversation here or play the embedded video below.
All the words below are Sharon’s unless explicitly marked.
Why Do You Suggest Habits, Routines, and Rituals for Right Now?
When I was raising kids, I learned that structure and routines were great for kids. It lets them know what to expect. Maybe I’m just a big kid, but I really do like to have routines so that I know what to expect. It gives me some sense of control over my life. Particularly now in a pandemic, when there’s so much we don’t have control over, routines can be really grounding.
Maybe I’m just a big kid, but I really do like to have routines so that I know what to expect.
We’re home all the time now. How do you know when you’re at work? The data show that people are working more hours because we’re working from home. Maybe as much as 20% more.
We get some time back because we’re not commuting, but nonetheless, it’s helpful to have some kind of routine that helps us to delineate when we’re at work and when we’re at home. When we were going into an office, most people had some kind of morning routine. That routine is a signal to the brain, “Now it’s time to go to work.” I’ve been encouraging people working from home to still have a morning routine. Get up at the same time. Get out of your pajamas. Maybe if you drank coffee out of a travel mug on your commute, you could use the same travel mug while you walk three feet to your desk. Little things can cue your brain that it’s time to work.
Even more important and a little more challenging is to have an end of day work routine. Do that final scan of your emails that everything has been addressed that’s urgent. Look through your to-do list to plan the next day. That can be the signal to your brain that “I’m done working for today. I can close my computer because I know what to expect when I come to work tomorrow.”
Obstacles to Routine
People think it’s harder to do than it is. They also don’t recognize what they are already doing.
For example, some people have a regular morning practice of meditating. They just think that that’s what they do. They don’t necessarily identify it as part of their routine. Putting on clothes that are not pajamas signals your brain that this is not a Saturday or Sunday when you could stay in your pajamas all day. Of course, we don’t really know about the pajama bottoms. because everyone’s on Zoom. But at least they’re not wearing pajama tops.
I help people explore routines that can trigger their brains.
What’s the Difference Between Rituals, Habits, and Routines?
A ritual is a routine that has meaning beyond what you’re actually doing. When I start work, the first thing I do is The New York Times mini crossword. It takes about 30 seconds on a good day. This is me firing up my brain. “Okay, now I’m ready to dive into work.”
In basketball, most NBA stars have a ritual at the foul line, such as bouncing or twirling the ball a certain number of times. That gets them into the zone. With a ritual, there’s some kind of meaning or purpose attached to the activity.
With a habit, you just do it. You don’t have to expend energy remembering to do it.
A routine is something you still need to remind yourself to do. You may do it very regularly, but it takes self-regulation. Take exercise. Perhaps you’re tired in the morning, so getting into a cold pool isn’t appealing. You may be happy afterwards that you’ve done it, but it can be hard to get there.
People often associate rituals with a spiritual practice. As an adult, I looked at rituals that were part of my culture growing up and asked myself, “Is this something that I want to be doing or not?” Some things I decided to continue doing and other things I decided are not really for me as an adult. The nice thing about growing up with those kinds of rituals is that you know that you can create rituals because you’ve done it before.
A Success Story
I’m working with somebody now who’s preparing for a certification exam. He wants to practice every day for an hour or two. That’s a really big commitment. He doesn’t always have the time. I asked him, “If you don’t have the time to do an hour or two, what’s your fallback plan so that you still doing something and not getting out of practice?” He came up with 15 minutes practice. So this way the hurdle becomes smaller. His goal is to do an hour or two, but even if he only does 15 minutes, he’s done something.
Thus, he has established a routine. It definitely requires a lot of effort to stick to it because it’s hard.
Having a large goal can sometimes get in the way, especially for high achieving people that expect a lot of themselves. If they can’t do the full amount, they tend not bother doing it at all. Then they feel bad about it. Having a plan B for times when they don’t have the energy or time for the full amount lets them still make progress towards their big goal, as well as not be so hard on themselves.
How to Start a New Habit, Routine, or Ritual
We’re used to our daily routine. When we add something new, it’s a change. It takes some effort, attention, and intention to make it stick. It’s really common for people to put things off. “I’m going to start studying tomorrow.” That’s why I think it’s so important to take big goals and start really small with something that’s so easy you can’t imagine not doing it. Quite frankly, that’s how I started meditating. I’d read that I should meditate for 10 or 20 minutes and I didn’t think I could sit still for that long.
I thought, “All right, there’s tons of research around meditation and its benefits. I know it’s really good for me. It’s important to me to do this. What’s the smallest amount of time I can commit to doing this every day, where at the end of the day, I can’t say, ‘Yeah, it’s important, but I didn’t have time today.’” So, I started with two minutes.
Dan Harris in his book, Meditation For Fidgety Skeptics, says that one minute counts. That gets people thinking, “Oh, I can do this.” It builds self-efficacy. People can go on from there.
Tacking a new routine onto something that is already habitual is a great way to get started.
I’m a really big fan of starting small. B.J. Fogg in his book, Tiny Habits, recommends starting three things at once, but making each really, really small. I decided to follow through on his challenge with three new things. One of them was drinking an ounce or two of water before my coffee. Second was to read at least a page of a book after getting into bed. Third was to get on the treadmill and run for at least a minute.
Many months later, I continue to read the page. I mostly drink the water, though I haven’t advanced to the 8 ounces I planned. I got up to 20 to 23 minutes on the treadmill before I decided it was not great for my joints.
Fogg suggests linking the new behavior to something you’re already doing so that it becomes a little recipe. I happen to drink a lot of water, but I thought maybe it would help me cut down on coffee if I filled my body with some water first.
There’s no one size fits all approach to this. Some people like to dive in and give something their full attention for a long period of time. It is great when it works. But others find that big goals can be achieved better by breaking them down into smaller and smaller steps.
Take-away
Take a little time to look at your own routines, particularly in the morning and the evening. Identify one small thing that you can add that would be helpful for you. If you’re having trouble turning off from work at night, what could you do that would signal to your brain that this is now the end of the workday. Start small.
Photo by Dingzeyu Li on Unsplash
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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.