I am all for having consistent routines if you have chosen them and they serve you well. It is all too easy to fall into complacency and routine. Familiar repetition of actions is easy and, assuming the positive outcomes result, may even be rewarding. However, you may reach a point where the mundane becomes troubling… even irritating. Assuming you have some fiber of being that pulls you toward ‘something more,’ your routine will eventually become lackluster, and you’ll feel dissatisfaction with the day-to-day you are experiencing.
Unfortunately, one problem with routine life is that it is surprisingly difficult to extract yourself. The plus of a positive habit is that it makes hard things easy (or easier). The downside of a negative habit is that it makes easy things hard to break out of.
There is a tendency to think that a radical shift in behavior is the answer to behavioral adjustment. In reality, the tentacles of habit will likely pull you back into the depths of your status quo. So, how do you get out of a rut?
It is entirely possible to pull off some sort of disruptive behavior change. Get a new job, move to a new country, fire your friends, etc. The drawback to the extreme reaction to a rut is that it tends to be disruptive not just to the particular issue you wish to change but also to other aspects of your life that you are potentially quite content with.
So if you want to break out without breaking things, small changes are one option to start filling in your rut and finding a smooth surface to let you find a new path. These changes don’t necessarily even need to relate to what you view as your primary issue – though go ahead and start making changes there too, if you can.
If you feel stuck in a routine life, you are often stuck in many other parts of your life. Little changes will feel surprisingly novel at this point. Get a black coffee instead of that latte. Take the long way home. Delete that social media app from your phone. Pay with cash instead of a card. Write someone a postcard. Do something you’ve not done in a while that used to give you pleasure.
This is not a radical approach by any means, but it is more of a slow and steady wins-the-race mindset. These tiny steps build a habit of trying new things and escaping an uninspired and unexamined routine. Little changes don’t require massive willpower or motivation and are thus easy to continue doing. These little cracks in a routine life will start to steer you in new directions.
If you start agitating at the edges of your mundane existence, this mindset of doing something different will seep into your being. It will help you overcome the inertia you’ve recognized in your life. It will allow you to see new opportunities where before your head down and carry-on attitude left you blind. It is this new awareness that will start to uncover the next steps you’d like to explore and get after them.