Edition #6

Hi All!

Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!

I wanted to give a quick shout to the 26 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Master Your Mindset

Know When to Break Routine

My wife and I hiked 7.5 miles through Pedernales Falls State Park this past weekend. Why? To break routine. Let me explain.

I love habits and routines! They can bring order to your life and promote productivity. I use both habits and routines on a daily basis to:

• Eat healthy

• Get quality sleep

• Exercise regularly

• Reduce stress & overwhelm

But just as money can be a tool for happiness, but can’t by itself create happiness - routines can be a tool for a productive and meaningful life, but cannot create one alone.

So, what should be paired with routines to make the most out of life? Routine breaks.

Let’s talk about why and when you should make this happen.

Why

First, you may be thinking ‘why break routine at all? It has helped me build a strong mindset and is delivering the results I’m looking for.’

As I said, routines are incredible and you should not get rid of them. But you should break them now and again. Here’s why:

To Do Something Different:

Picture a day on vacation vs a regular day at home/work. How do you feel on vacation vs the regular day? Probably a lot more mentally and physically invigorated.

Why? Because there is a novelty that comes with traveling and visiting a new place. It brings a sense of adventure and uncertainty that we all need to experience at times.

But you don’t have to wait until your next vacation to feel revitalized. Take a few hours or a day and do something different from what your routine ‘tells’ you to do.

This is exactly what I did for my hike this past weekend. It was leg day and I wasn’t feeling the gym. I thought, how can I still get a good leg workout outside of my routine? Enter ‘Hike 7.5 miles.’

Boom, just like that a great workout, a new experience, and a wonderful day with my wife.

Try something new or different every once and a while.

Prevent Burnout:

We aren’t robots. We will burnout if we go too hard in one direction.

A routine break for this reason is so vitally important to actually stick to a routine for the long term. The main reason most people fail to maintain a routine long enough for it to make the impact they desire is because they reach burnout before they were willing to cut themself a moment or day of slack.

For your mental health, give yourself grace every now and then to break routine and avoid burnout.

Gain Clarity:

A routine break can spur a reflection process about your routine.

• Is my current routine serving me?

• Are there adjustments I can make?

• Am I on the exact right path?

Taking a break and asking yourself questions like this can help adjust, refine, or confirm your routine to ensure it is working as intended.

Reinvigorate Brain Function:

The upside to habits and routines is that we don’t have to think about them once they are ingrained into our schedule. We perform them on autopilot and it eliminates brain-fatiguing thought processes.

The downside to habits and routines is we get too complacent with ‘what we do’ and don’t see or feel the need to make changes.

A routine break allows your brain to come back online from a sensory and emotional standpoint (coming off autopilot). This reinvigoration of brain function is healthy and important for you to live a fulfilled life.

When

With the ‘Why’ of routine breaks now understood, the ‘When’ becomes simple and clear so I’ll keep this short.

When should you take a break?

• When you’re in need of a mental break

• When you’re feeling the early signs of burnout

• When you’re feeling bored or lifeless in your routine

• When you’re questioning why am I doing said behavior

Simply put, take a break when you fuckin’ need to. It’s okay!!

Hone Your Habits

Journaling - A Smaller Commitment Than You Think

Have you heard high performers talk about how much journaling helps them gain mental clarity and collect their thoughts?

Then promptly thought, “I don’t have time for that sh*t.”

I was in the same boat as you about 3 months ago. Until I finally gained the courage to try it out when my sister and her friend came to visit and I saw my sister’s friend journaling every morning (h/t Amanda T. for the motivation 😊).

So I bought myself a journal (if this is too expensive for you, use a legal pad of paper - anything you can write on regularly) and used Reverse Habit Stacking to integrate it into my schedule. I drink coffee mid-morning so I decided I’ll start journaling just before my coffee for 5mins, set a quick timer, and started writing.

When the 5min timer went off, I realized the ‘I didn’t have time’ excuse was truly all in my head. We all have 5mins. You don’t have to write a novel or have Einstein-caliber thoughts to journal. You just need 5mins (or 3 or 2, whatever you want) and your own thoughts.

The clarity of getting your thoughts on paper is truly remarkable!

So if you have been wanting to journal but have been putting it off because “you don’t have time” or you think “I don’t need that woo-woo stuff,” YOU are EXACTLY the person that NEEDS IT MOST!

Here are the 3 things that will make it absurdly easy to get started and stick with it:

• 5 minutes - YES, you have 5 minutes to spare

• Habit stacking - tie journaling to an existing habit you do daily at the time of day you want to journal

• Prime your environment - Put your journal in a place where you will see it when you need to use it. I keep mine on top of my laptop so when my laptop closes for the night, I can’t reopen it in the morning without seeing my journal.

I’ll leave you with 2 styles of journaling, that I inter-change depending on how I’m feeling:

• Brain Dump - There is only one rule. You cannot stop writing for the duration you set. No thought is dumb, just don’t stop writing. Even if it’s “I don’t know what to write about, I am thinking about what I want to say so I will keep writing until I figure it out.” That’s great! Keep writing and you will find the clarity you need.

• Prompts - Sometimes you will want direction to guide your journaling experience. This is when you can use prompts to write about something specific. There are 100s online so have a look but here are a few of my favorites:

  • How can I be uncomfortable today?

  • How can I affirm a true desire in someone else today?

  • When I’m living a good day, what am I spending my time on?

  • How can I make realistic progress toward my main goal today?

Happy journaling lads and lasses!

Words of Wisdom

You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading! And always remember…

Slow and steady. Never Idle.

Until next week,

Austin Sargent