Habits and Routines and Rituals, Oh My!

Especially in an era that we weren’t evolutionarily designed for, there is way too much shit going on in our lives to get everything done. It’s also super hard to make changes when we’ve gotten ourselves into a rut. Generating momentum around something we want to do for ourselves takes a lot of effort and can all too easily fizzle out in the chaos of the everyday. 

But! We do have agency! We can make shit happen in our lives. We do have the power – if we know how to use it. Habits, routines, and rituals are the way, my friends. With these simple concepts, we can leverage our internal autopilot for the greater good.

Obviously, if just knowing we need to change our bad habits or adopt new, better ones did the trick – we’d do it! We’d have done did it already. But if we don’t create frameworks for ourselves, the changes don’t get done. 

So that’s what I want to explore today – how understanding the differences between habits, routines, and rituals can help us craft individualized systems that will support us in actually living the lives we want.

Habits – The Base Components

Over ten years ago, I read Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, and it changed my life. It’s a deep dive into the neuroscience of habit formation: what habits are, how they work, why they work, and the key components to focus on when you want to change your habits or build new ones. (Highly recommend reading the book to get a thorough understanding of what I’m about to rapidly abbreviate).

Habits are actions (or thought processes) that we move through on autopilot – we do the thing without having to actively think about it.

With “bad” habits, this may be obvious. We know we want to change, but somehow our autopilot just keeps reaching for the things that we know are bad for us. Good habits are the same, though – we’ve trained our brain to do what we want it to without conscious thought.

And the cool thing is that by understanding the mechanisms of habits – what’s going on in our brains that triggers the autopilot – we can start to change them. 

Duhigg explains that habits consist of three components:

1. A cue – something that signals to the brain that it’s time to do the thing
2. A process – the action or movement of the habit
3. A reward – this is the why behind the habit, what we get out of it

By identifying each of these components, we can leverage them to make meaningful changes to our habits. For bad habits, identifying the cue and the reward can help us to divert or replace the process (e.g. chewing gum instead of smoking a cigarette). For implementing new habits, we can set up cues and rewards for ourselves to help structure the new behavior. 

Habits are the building blocks of routines and rituals. 

Routines – The Systemization of Habits

Routines are habits on steroids. Or, what James Clear calls habit-stacks in Atomic Habits – which takes the concepts from Power of Habit and offers ways to apply them directly to your own life. (I reference this book a lot). 

A routine is a series of habits that you link together to create a sequence you can follow on autopilot. 

Think about an ideal bedtime routine – the clock strikes 9:00 (our cue to start winding down), we turn off the TV, put the phone on the charger, maybe set up the coffee maker for morning, check the doors are locked, then hit the bathroom to wash our face, brush our teeth, and then finally go to bed. (Lol – even typing that out I skipped the flossing part because that is always going to require intentionality from me).

The end of one habit (e.g. washing your face) acts as the cue for the next habit (brushing your teeth). There may be a series of rewards (the feeling of a clean face and clean teeth), or an ultimate reward (getting into bed). But deliberately stringing these habits together creates a routine that lets our system get shit done without having to think about it. 

Not having to think about it is what makes routines so effective, but building a quality routine does require thinking about it in advance. 

Timing and Planning Are Key

To adopt new habits and create routines, we need to plan out when we are going to do them. When we don’t have a plan, we’re just hoping our brains will remember that we want to do the thing. And, well, that often means it gets lost in the shuffle of our day.

Case in point, I’ve been trying to get myself to do my PT exercises for… a long time. Since my knee doesn’t really hurt all that often, I’ve not been adequately motivated to take the time to do the tedious exercises that will keep it from hurting. Which is dumb, I’m aware. But knowing PT exercises are a good idea is different from getting some sense of reward or relief from doing them. 

And a big part of the problem is that I hadn’t figured out where to put those exercises in my day. I didn’t have a plan, which means I didn’t have a cue. And if I don’t have a cue, my system doesn’t know when it’s supposed to do the thing. Thus, it doesn’t get done. 

Thankfully, in the midst of writing this all up, I figured out where to put them and how to cue myself, and so far I’ve managed to keep it up for a week!

Yay, routines!

Rituals – Making Magic with Habits and Routines

Rituals take all of this up a notch by bringing in an element of the sacred. And in this case, we can absolutely apply the non-religious definition (though if you’re down with God, then by all means go with it!). So, we’re talking here about making something sacred in the sense of treating it as ”​​entitled to reverence and respect.”

Whether or not you’re on the spirituality train, rituals are about commitment and respect. Making something into a ritual means honoring it as genuinely important to you.

For example, to turn my morning routine into a ritual would mean treating it with deep reverence. Protecting it. Keeping it centered as non-negotiable.

Last month I fell off the fucking wagon of my morning routine real hard. After all of the stress and excitement and hard work and vulnerability hangover of launching the podcast, my daily writing practice (which has long been part of my morning routine) went out the fucking window. 

Writing, creating, and keeping up with this blog is important to me. It matters deeply. It feels like a calling and a gift that I am offering the world, and when I let the weariness and hurry of life get in the way… it really doesn’t feel good to my soul. So, it’s no wonder I’ve been feeling crunchy.

Writing is sacred to me. And yet! Actually treating things as sacred is hard. It’s effortful. And maybe that’s part of the point. 

We care more about the things we work for. The effort gets our attention. Part of it is deciding that the thing is important enough to treat with reverence. And the other part is keeping that fact centered for ourselves. 

Creating rituals – routines that we treat as sacred – can bring a sense of awe, respect, and magic to the commitments we make to ourselves.

Centering the Things That Matter

It’s so fucking easy to let all the little, piddly shit take precedence. The “urgent” stuff that’s yelling at us – laundry, yard work, getting this, that, or the other thing taken care of. But the truth is that all of that shit will still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

I really like what Oliver Burkeman talks about in Four Thousand Weeks – that the to-do list will never be done. That no productivity tool, or strategy, or mindset is going to help us get everything checked off because the list will just keep growing. Instead, we have to decide what’s actually important.

I’ve had a post-it on my computer for a few years now that says “fall in love with actions.” While that was originally related to a tendency to be swept up in the seductive words and promises of partners (whose actions often didn’t match up with their words), I think it applies here, too.

I can say something is important to me all I want, but what do my actions indicate? 

Is how I’m showing up on a daily basis lining up with what I say matters to me? 

If not, then I have an opportunity for self-compassion and re-commitment. With my writing routine, I can gently encourage myself to get back on track rather than being mean to myself about it and falling into a shame spiral. 

When it comes to all of our habits, routines, and rituals, I want to banish shame and guilt. I want us all to let go of the shoulds and step into the warmth of treating ourselves with love. 

Building Habits with Love

When thinking about the things we want for ourselves, it’s a lot nicer and more inviting to approach from a place of love (rather than a place of obligation). A dear friend and fellow coach frames it as a question they ask themselves each day: “am I touching the things I love?”

And I love that. Centering my desire for certain habits and routines around love brings a light and joy to the commitment. It takes the guilt and shame out of falling out of my routines and helps to ground me in the why. 

I love my body (or want to love my body), so I want to treat it well.

I love my home, so I want to take care of it.

I love myself, so I want to check in with my needs and ensure I’m doing things that truly bring me joy.

None of this stuff has to be a burden. It doesn’t have to be something I grudgingly push myself to do. It can be a way of actively practicing love in my life.

Eating more vegetables and fewer Cheetos is an act of love.

Vacuuming is an act of love. 

Even doing my stupid PT exercises is an act of love.

That perspective feels a damn sight better than looking at them as chores, as obligations, as more shit to pile on the endless list of stuff I “have” to do. 

If I can invite love into my habits and routines, they start to feel a lot more like an invitation. And invitations feel a lot more appealing than demands. 

So, if you needed one, here’s your invitation to build a habit, routine, or ritual around something you love – it’s worth it, and so are you.