Once in a blue moon, my body decides to listen to my heart and soul and gives me what I need. This past week, it was waking up on Monday at 4 a.m. The joy of having woken up early and actually having gotten out of bed was incomparable to anything I’ve felt on a Monday morning — usually a nice cocktail of cynicism, anxiety, and fear. So joy, was very welcome.
Over the past almost three years of working, I’ve had three stints of waking up early and going into work early so I can get back home when the sun’s still out and the roads aren’t filled with overworked, cranky commuters. But almost always, the waking up early would be a week long stint and by the following Monday, I’d be back to joining the morning and evening traffic lines as a fellow cranky commuter.
And each of the three times I managed to stick to an early morning schedule, it was because of happenstance.
I love the idea of exploring a new routine, especially one that accidentally falls into place like waking up early. A routine is what I like to think of as a course of actions or behaviors that cater to one’s well being. There’s so much literature on building proper routines and optimizing them that I feel like the concept of routines has become overwhelming, unachievable, and toxic. So much of the discussion around routines center around optimization, streamlining, automating, and perfecting. Sure, it’d be nice to have a perfect routine but in case anyone’s forgotten, perfection isn’t something that’s attainable if one’s planning to live, laugh, and love. There’s nothing perfect about being human. No matter how much we try to do our best, things get in our way. Mental health, jobs, physical health, relationships, monetary issues, academia, and so many more external and internal forces shove us down roads and turns we don’t expect. So how is one supposed to make an overarching routine that’s supposed to stay true to all this change? Not many of us are privileged enough to have a life so stable or so stagnant to have an unchanging routine.
I think that it’s time to embrace the idea of magic in a routine. For example, the random acts of of happenstance when you realize that on the first of every month, you make a soup that fills you with warmth and comfort. So you start a monthly routine of planning out your next Day One Soup. Or you realize that you happen to think about getting frozen yogurt at your local frozen yogurt shop nearly every Friday and you listen to your body and make it an end of work week tradition. Routines build themselves naturally.
Lean into your intuition and see what’s right for you. Sometimes, the world and the situations we’re stuck in make things blurry, but if you happen to find yourself in a moment of silence where your body nudges you towards something, take a chance on it and embrace it. Don’t worry about planning anything out and instead, listen to your body and mind. Routines form based on things that we like, care for, or need.
In my situation, work’s been a lot and something that scares me and leaves me with a lot of anxiety. My body told me that it’s time to stop and take time for myself before going into work. Hence, the 4 a.m wake up call. Because I enjoyed that early Monday morning, I decided to recreate it the next day. But the next day, I didn’t feel like doing all that I did the prior morning, so I didn’t. The next, next day, I felt like waking up a half an hour later than I had been, but I listened to my body and let myself get that extra bit of sleep. I’m listening to what I need and adjusting my routine to it. I’m making the routine fit my needs rather than forcing myself to fit a routine.
Another big change that’s made my morning routine more solid is getting into bed early. Waking up early has forced me to let things be and take things slow, which honestly is a big part of building a sustainable routine and not something I find comfortable or easy. I’ve learned to prioritize what I want to do after work and reassure myself (multiple times) that it’s okay for not doing it all and for just doing what I think is the bare minimum. Sometimes the bare minimum is only folding half the laundry or bookmarking some online courses I need to review for work. It may not be all that I wanted to do but I still did something and some nights, that’s good enough. Basically, when the night rolls around, I let be, slow down, and do what I can to get into bed earlier than I usually do.
I hope that this little entry in the 4 a.m diaries has taught you how to ease into a routine and that it’s okay to start a routine multiple times before getting a hang of it. It’s only been five days, and I’ve got two more days for this wake up routine to have stuck for a week. And according to the smart people, it takes 66 days for a habit to stick so we’ll see what kind of routine I’ll build in my mornings.