THE POWER OF REFRAME
We’ve talked about morning routines before, and how they can set you up for success throughout your day—and it was brought to my attention recently how mundane and tedious the word “routine” sounds.
For those of us in the functional training space, we have avoided “routines” as much as possible. We’ve found our workouts to be consistently effective when we switch up the stimulus, external loads, and duration of workouts. Because of this, I have chosen to rebrand my morning routine. I will no longer being calling it a routine, and instead a morning ritual.
I like to treat my days the same way I treat my training, with intention. I don’t want to settle. When I think of routine, I think of being on autopilot, moving through the motions and doing the bare minimum to get from point A to point B. I think of those times I get into my car and end up at my destination with no recollection of how I got there.
WHEN I THINK OF RITUALS, I THINK OF CELEBRATIONS. I THINK OF HONOR. I THINK ABOUT INTENTION.
When I begin my morning meditation, I don’t want it to feel monotonous. I celebrate these moments of silence and focus on my breath. When I start my morning movement, I don’t want to rush through it and get from start to finish without awareness—I want to move with intention and virtuosity. With these goals in mind, it makes a lot more sense to refer to my mornings as rituals instead of routines.
The way we speak to ourselves can completely change our reality. The simple reframe of changing my morning from routine to ritual has reinvigorated the start to my day.