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Writer's pictureEduard Sebastian

How to Not Lose Your Sanity Over Failing Routines

Updated: May 7



Failing to keep up with my routines led to a lot of disappointment. I wasn’t happy with myself, and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep up with the chaos that engulfed my life.


Dealing with chaos

I had a hectic period. It might be because I am taking more clients as a freelancer, but also because I am young. Many changes are happening simultaneously in my life, and it’s pretty hard for me to keep rigorous routines.


I like routines because they provide comfort and stability, you know what to do and what to expect.


Nevertheless, given that there are many uncertainties in my life at the moment, such as how much work I have to deal with on any given day, my health, my relationship, and my plans for the future, I am struggling to adhere to the routines I’ve created.


I’ve ferociously tried to fight to have a chance to make my days revolve around routines, but I completely failed. It took several cycles of attempts and failures to realize that maybe I needed another approach.


I tried to keep up with an ideal way of approaching a routine: doing something a certain amount of times a week for a certain period of time. For example, going to the gym five days a week and working out for one hour.


This didn’t work because many things interfered with my schedule, and because of that, I postponed or even canceled going to the gym.


The same thing happened with pretty much any other routine I had because my life became chaotic, and I couldn’t keep up.


I’ve decided that I need another approach to dealing with my life.


Embracing the chaos

Instead of trying to try to keep the imperfect lines of my life straight, I decided to make myself more flexible.


I’ve decided to plan my days by making lists of things I should do, assigning them a priority value (how urgent they should be taken care of), and about when I should do them.

So, instead of trying to go to the gym five days a week, at 10 AM, for 1 hour, I plan to go to the gym three times a week whenever I can, for a minimum of half an hour

.

You could say that I’ve become more lenient with the conditions of my routines. I believe this is a necessary thing if your life is chaotic because it might be practically impossible to adhere to strict routines.


If you are not able to stick to your routines, you might have piling lists of things you should have done that only bring negative feelings towards yourself.


Becoming more lenient with your routines, prioritizing, and using a more abstract type of routine should help with keeping your sanity and not demolish your self-esteem.


The takeaway

I believe that religiously trying to adhere to routines that you can’t keep up with will destroy your self-efficacy.


Self-efficacy refers to how capable you are of doing a certain activity. This feeling heavily relies on past experiences as a reference for what you are capable of.

If you create strict and unrealistic routines that you are not capable of adhering to, you will gradually diminish your self-efficacy.


I am not saying that you should lower your expectations of yourself so that you feel comfortable with doing nothing with your life. You should have good standards, but the standards should be realistic.


Having unrealistic expectations from yourself and continuously failing at objectives you set for yourself is a recipe for destroying your self-esteem and damaging your mental health.

As time passes and the various uncertainties of my life stabilize, I aim to have routines that are more strict, but that will be a gradual process rather than trying to force something upon my life.


Navigating the chaos requires flexibility and compassion. You can set goals that are within your reach to build your confidence over time.

Choose to grow a little bit every day rather than keep up with unrealistic ideals.

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