7 Ways To Be Consistent With Your Routine

This is part 3 in a series of posts on routines. If you want to read part 1 on why it’s important to have routines click here. For part 2, on how to set up routines click here. Today I want to talk all about staying consistent with your routine.

My draft title for this post was “7 Ridiculously Easy Ways to Stick to Your Routine”.  But the truth is sticking to a routine is hard work.

After all, it’s pretty common to start out great, maybe at the end of the first week of a new routine we’ve managed to do our devotions, have a healthy breakfast, keep the house tidy and clean, and have all our must-do tasks done by 10 AM.

The following week it got a little harder, we missed our devotions and breakfast a couple of days and well it was much closer to 11 a.m. before we finished those must-do tasks. And at the end of the third week, yesterday’s dishes are sitting in the sink and you’re scrolling through Facebook.

Let’s get real here, the hardest part of any routine is staying consistent.  Really when you set up a new routine you’re forming a bunch of new habits and making a new habit stick takes work.

Yet at the same time, the more consistent you are with your routine the easier it becomes. Just like once something becomes a habit you don’t think about it, you just do it.   Consistency with your routine begins to happen on autopilot as you go about daily life.

Think of it this way, when you’re learning to drive you’re super focused on every aspect. When you get in the car you remind yourself of every task you need to perform.

You thought about putting on your seatbelt, you carefully checked all your mirrors, and you were aware of how far you had to turn the ignition to start the car. Heck, you practically turned your whole body to look over your shoulder making sure the roadway was clear before you pulled out.

Slowly you enter the street with your hands carefully placed at the 11 and 2 o’clock positions. It’s almost funny to think about today because if you’ve been driving for any length of time you no longer think about any of those things. But it did take practice and consistency.

7 Ways to Stick to Your Routine

So while staying consistent with your routine takes some initial work, the good news is it really doesn’t have to be that hard.

Here are 7 ways to be consistent with your routine.

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1. Do It For You!

I’m going to start out here by giving you the number one secret to being consistent with your routine. Your daily routine must be crafted specifically for YOU, by YOU.

Seriously, the best routines and the ones you’ll be able to stay consistent with our those routines that line up with what’s important to you!

Look, you know what’s important to you better than anyone. Plus, you also know exactly what it is that you need.  For this reason, nobody is able to design a routine for you better than you.

Please remember, if your routine isn’t in alignment with your values and what you find important you’ll find it nearly impossible to stay consistent.  There is a reason you’ve gone to all the work of setting up a routine remember why this is important to you.

The rewards of staying consistent with your routine are huge. This is your opportunity to take ownership of your life.

To stay consistent with your routine, examine the motivation behind what you’re trying to accomplish.  Make sure you’re implementing these routines for you and not just because someone told you all about the ways routines will benefit your life.

If you want to stay consistent with your routine do it for YOU!

2. Be Realistic

Yes, it’s possible to wake up at the crack of dawn, have your quiet time, make a lovely breakfast, pack everyone’s lunches, get out the door on time, get one kid to piano lessons and the other one to baseball practice, pick everyone back up, come home for a quick dinner, homework, and bedtime.

Phew! I’m exhausted just writing that. While it is possible, my question is what is the cost of keeping this schedule?

Your entire day is checking the time on your phone and focusing on the next activity.

Of course, you can’t stay consistent with your routine with this kind of schedule, no one can. How do I know; I’ve been there and done that. 

You see when my kids were younger I was working full-time and had them involved in music lessons, they both played several sports and had church activities and of course tons of homework.

I had to learn to be realistic as to what I could expect from myself and whether our crazy schedule was lining up with our values.  This particular season of life was going to be busy no matter what.

But, we did end up limiting the number of activities the kids could each be involved in.  We weren’t legalistic about it but made a general rule that Sundays and Wednesdays were off-limits for extracurricular activities.  This helped line up our schedule with our values.

If your schedule is preventing you from staying consistent with your routine, you, my friend, have to stop making excuses.  Be realistic as to what you can accomplish based on your season of life.

Making your routine realistic is what matters at this point. When you’re attempting to implement a new routine you need to make it 100% doable!

This means considering the season of life you’re in and recognizing you can’t do it all.  Make sure what matters most to you is being scheduled and limit those activities that may be interfering with your priorities.

3. Take Baby Steps

In addition to creating a realistic routine, you should begin your routine with baby steps. After all, you’d never try to declutter and organize your entire house in a single day, right? When you take on too much you end up feeling defeated and discouraged.

Let’s face it, as humans, our capacity for discipline and stick-to-it-ness is not exactly Stellar.  Take it easy when you’re getting started.

If you start small it’s easy to add on and you’ll feel good about it. But if you start out with these grandiose tasks and it doesn’t work, you’re gonna find it hard to feel positive about your routine and be tempted to quit.  So start with those tiny, tiny baby steps, and don’t feel guilty about it.

Just do one small thing at a time. Don’t worry about how long it takes, just keep going with that one thing until you’re consistent.  This is what creates success.

Instead of setting up all your routines, pick one thing that you find yourself struggling with. For example, don’t set up an entire house cleaning schedule. Start with just making your bed each day or commit to cleaning the bathroom each Monday. When that becomes easy, make it more challenging by adding a load of laundry each day or vacuuming on Fridays.

Before long you’ll find that you’ve been successfully consistent with your routine.

4. Have The Right Mindset

The fact that you’re reading this tells me one very important thing, you’ve already made the decision to stop the overwhelmed and take back control of your life. The best part is you’re determined to make it happen. So why are you sabotaging yourself with negative self-talk?

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to give up negative self-talk if you’re really going to get consistent with your routine.

When we focus on the negative, on the “I can’t do this”, “it’s too hard” or “I’m going to fail” it’s going to manifest itself in your life.

If you’re telling yourself you’re failing at your routine honestly it won’t take long before you’re feeling frustrated, missing entire sections of your routine, beating yourself up, and ultimately giving up.

You MUST take control of your thoughts!

Remind yourself you’ve got this! Sticking to your routine feels so good!

As you continue to focus on mindset, trust me, you’re going to be feeling a well-deserved sense of pride.  Not only that but your motivation is increased because you are taking control of your life.

I’m telling you our minds are powerful they can make or break the consistency of our routines.  So give up the negative self-talk and surround yourself with positive.

5. Be Intentional

Under the best of circumstances, a new routine is hard to stick to.  When you add in the countless distractions of daily life it is all but guaranteed we’ll be led astray if we’re not intentional.

Being intentional starts with removing as many hindrances as possible. To do this, take some time to really identify those areas and times you are most likely to succumb to distraction.

Learning to recognize distractions throughout your day is really the only way you’ll be able to eliminate them.

I know for me, distractions are just a way to allow me to procrastinate. At one point, I was quite skilled at procrastination.  But having routines in place makes you keenly aware of what you didn’t get done.

So I had no choice, I either gave up or got intentional and took ownership of my day. Controlling how I was spending my time was entirely within my control.  The same is true for you!  No one else can do that for you, you have to hold yourself accountable for your day.

Learning to make better decisions is about learning to say no and seeing how your calendar issues are fully your own. You and you alone can decide to stop adding more.

I love this quote from Steven Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities”.

Today is the day to stop trying to fit it all in and be intentional about the choices you make.

6. Set Yourself Up For Success

Have you thought about how you’ll set yourself up for Success by staying consistent with your routine? You want to be purposeful in doing what you can to make sure you succeed.

Here are a few simple ways I learned to set myself up for success and stay consistent with my routine:

A. Prepare the Night Before

Use the night before to prepare for your next day.  I try and make lunches and get any items I’ll need for the next day. I pick out my outfit for the day the next day before I go to bed.

Do whatever you can to prepare for each day the night before.

B. Go To Bed At A Reasonable Hour

A good night’s rest is hands down the best thing you can do to help with your productivity the next day.  You will make better decisions and you’ll feel better overall.

C. Set Alarms

I firmly believe that one of the absolute best things you can do to keep consistent with your routine is to set alarms throughout the day.

Alarms are a great way to remind you when it’s time to get off of social media.  I also use alarms to remind me when it’s time to turn off the computer and get ready for bed.  You can use alarms to remind you to start preparing dinner and pretty much anything you are trying to develop a regular rhythm for.

D. Build In Margin

One of the biggest mistakes I see people making in setting up routines is they attempt to fill every moment of their day.  When you do this there is no room for error or unexpected events.

On the other hand, when you build margin into your routines so that every moment is scheduled you will have room to breathe and be spontaneous.  You’ll avoid feeling like you’re in catch-up mode or spinning wheels because you missed a part of your routine one day.

Build in some margin and enjoy the space!

7. Give Grace, Grace, and More Grace

No day will ever go perfectly as planned. Your routine should never be about seeking perfection.

To stay consistent with your routine, be willing to go with the flow, with whatever comes your way.  This does not mean you shouldn’t be diligent in staying consistent with your routine.

It does, however, ensure you recognize your routine is not all or nothing.  You can’t beat yourself up for missing a portion of your routine.  Show yourself Grace and then some more grace.

Real change requires work and consistency.  You have to be willing to do the work. You’re not magical, I’m not magical. There is no secret formula I can give you. The bottom line is if you want something different you need to do something different.

For further reading, you may want to check out The Miracle Morning, you can actually read this for free with Kindle Unlimited.

In the meantime, implement these 7 steps to stay consistent with your routine.