Breaking Routines for Empowered Conscious Change

“If you want to change your life, you have to change you life.” I laughed right out loud the first time I read that statement. I didn’t laugh because it was funny. I laughed at the sheer brilliance of the observation.

You really can’t keep doing the same things, thinking the same thoughts, and expect somehow to wake up in a new and better world. You have to let go of your accustomed patterns of behavior and thought—as comfortable and familiar as they are—if you’re going to adopt new ones. And it’s that very thing that stops most of us. How on earth do you change the way you think?

Actually, it’s a kind of skill. And as with most skills, the place to start is with simple things. Learning to make changes is a matter of learning to make conscious choices. And if you start with small choices, you will quickly discover how liberating, empowering, and downright fun making choices can be.

One way to begin is to decide that every day for the next week or so you’ll make a small change one of your habitual routines.

To get you started, here are some suggestions:

• When you shower, start with washing a different part of your body than you normally do.

• Put your clothes on in a different order.

• Take a different route to work, or home.

• When you grocery shop, start at the opposite end of the store than you usually do.

• Park in a different area of a familiar parking lot (and remember where!)

• Eat a new food or one you haven’t enjoyed for a long time and eat it without distractions.

• Eat in a different location than you normally do.

• Tune in a different station on your car radio.

• Sit in a different chair in your living room than you usually do.

• Turn off the TV for an evening.

Notice how you feel as you choose to make the change. Does the idea of doing things differently seem interesting? Does it peak your curiosity? Does it make you anxious? Or seem foolish? Notice your level of willingness to try something new.

Then, as you actually do the new behavior, pay attention to how it changes your viewpoint. Notice whether new kinds of thoughts go through your mind, whether you’re feeling more aware and more observant.

Practicing “routine-busting” gives you amazing insight into how much of your life you live on automatic pilot. It lets you see the degree to which you sleep-walk through life, and wakes you up to the realization that you really can alter your experiences simply by making conscious choices.

It has other benefits, too. We associate our routines with safety; they protect us from surprises. But they imprison us, too. They blind us to new options and deafen us to our intuitions. When you experiment with stepping outside familiar patterns in small, non-threatening ways, you get a taste of the exhilaration that comes with expanding your boundaries. You find yourself looking for additional new choices you can make and paying more attention to your hunches. You open yourself to the idea that the range of possibilities available to you in any given moment is far broader than you had previously imagined. You begin to let your choice-making extend to more and more areas of your life. Your risk-taking abilities expand; you become more spontaneous and less inhibited.

“All this,” you may ask, “just from taking a different route home?” Let me tell you about Joe. I don’t know if that’s his name, but I’ll call him that. I heard his story several years ago on my car radio. Joe was retired and lived with his son. He spent his days sitting in a chair by a window, sipping whiskey, smoking, and watching TV. That was pretty much his whole life for a couple of years.

One day, while gazing out the window, Joe decided he’d go for a walk. He went out the front door, down to the corner and back. The next day, he decided to do it again, and this time he walked all the way around the block. Pretty soon he was walking several blocks. Then several miles. Then he got bored with walking and decided to see if he could run. He was pushing 70, mind you. He hadn’t run in decades. But he tried it and decided that it was kind of fun.

His whiskey and cigarettes fell by the wayside, and he began running farther and farther every day. When he was 72, Joe scored the achievement of his lifetime. He won a seniors’ marathon that wound its way to the top of Pike’s Peak. All because one day he decided to make a little change in his routine.

I don’t know what your Pike’s Peak is, but I know it’s out there, calling you. If you want to change your life, you have to change your life. Start small. Start today. And may glorious discoveries await you!