Line BreakAuthor: Steven Aitchison (433 Articles)
I am the owner of this blog and write about personal development with my passions being belief formation, thoughts, perceptions and emotions. You can get my FREE video course to help Change Your Life at www.AlterYourJacket.com
One of the practices that separates the successful people in life to everyone else is that they have incorporated rituals in their life to meet their goals and grow themselves and their businesses. One of the people who has incorporated a ritual of writing every day is Leo Babauta from Zen Habits. He practiced the habit of writing every single day for his blog and writing for other blogs until his site grew to having over 100,000 subscribers and being mentioned in various high profile sites. He is now up there with the like of Steve Pavlina and the Huffington Post. The amazing thing is that Leo is married with 6 children and has a very active family life. When it comes to writing I have a love-hate relationship with it, I love it when I am actually in the zone and everything flows, but when it ‘has to be done’ my muse seems to desert me. However having said this the more I do it the more my muse seems to be with me.
Tony Schwartz talks about incorporating rituals in your life one a time and he advises for 30 days do something everyday at the same time to make it a ritual. If you do it for 30 days and then stop for 1 day, your mind and body actually miss the ritual and you feel as if you are missing something in your life.
What kind of rituals to build?
There are a million rituals you can incorporate into your life and I will list a few here to get you thinking:
- Writing every single day
- Practicing relaxation every day
- Write down your goals every day
- Exercise every day
- Leave 10 comments every day on various blogs to increase your blogs presence
- Do 1 thing that will get you a step closer toward your goals in life
- Clean the house at a set time each day (this way sunday mornings are not such a chore, if you’re anything like me the big jobs are left until sunday).
- Write a page of your book every single day
- Work on producing 1 product every month, if you’re an information marketer, and work every day on completing just 1 product.
Obviously your rituals will be totally different from mine but hopefully you get the picture. Tony Schwartz further goes on his book to say that it is best to build up 1 ritual at a time. So in effect you can develop 12 rituals every year.
How to build your rituals
The first step is to know what ritual you would like to develop. For me it is writing every single day to my blog, for my other websites and contributing to other blogs and I will be doing this for the next 30 days. So get a list of 12 rituals you want to develop.
The second step is to prioritise these rituals until you have a list of 12 rituals and at the top of the list is the ritual you most want to develop and practice.
Now start with the ritual at the top of the tree and start doing it every day for the next 30 days. The key is to try and make it the same time every day and not to waver from that set time, obviously there will be some days this is not possible but try and make it as close to the time you set as possible.
When you have completed your first 30 days review you list re-prioritise and then start the next one, whilst still practicing your original one.
That’s it, you keep building and you keep doing your rituals.
Objections to this
There are going to be objections to this so let me dispel some things first. When I first started doing this my mind said ‘well if I have 12 rituals that I do every day, I won’t have time to do anything else in my life!’ however whenever I started doing this I found that I was much more focused on my rituals and I got a lot more done. The rituals, so far, in my life are:
5am – 5.15am do 10 minute back exercises
5.15am – 5.45am – checking emails and social networking and answering questions (don’t click on links to websites even if you think they are interesting. Instead create an ‘interesting’ folder in your email program and view it at a later date, chances are it won’t seem that interesting at a later date and it get’s deleted.)
5.45am – 6am – 15 minutes of relaxation
6am – 6.45am – 45 minutes of writing either for the blog, another blog or for my next web project
6.45am – 7am – Get kids up and ready for school
7am – 7.15am – Make lunches up for school and get the kids up again (last chance!)
12pm – 12.30pm – Lunch at the computer checking emails and social marketing.
12.30pm – 12.45pm – Back exercises
12.45pm – 1pm – relaxation
10pm – 10.15pm – Back exercises
So you can see from the list above I have developed a few rituals in my life that are good for me, productive and helps me to reach other goals in life. Before I started really doing this I was unfocused and my mind was all over the place as I had so many ideas and I was going from one idea to another and never really completing anything. Now I am much more focused and adding to my rituals every month. The newest ritual being writing every day, however having said this I have had no internet connection for 10 days as BT screwed up and cut my line off when i was trying to transfer an old number to my new house, so you will not have seen any new posts for the last 10 days or so. However now you will be seeing one every day for the next 30 days or so.
What rituals do you want in your life
Do you have rituals in your life which you are achieving. Why not let us know and tell your story of how your rituals are working out.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
all of us want to practice the rituals to be successful, to be disciplined and to have a an organised way of carrying out all activities.But in practice some are successful and reap all rewards and benefits.Why? It is a single word NEGLECT.For example when it comes to advicing others on Health we are generous and we do not follow the regime ourselves and we think we are not likely to be affected by it.We know all basics but do not follow them day in and day out.The successful lot follow them day in and day out and it is the same every day.One more example.If we have diabetes,we tend to let our chips once a while and that could turn out to be a disaster.
We can take any sphere of activity and there are examples in plenty.
It is the single factor called NEGLECT which the differentiates the ones who are successul from the rest
Hi. This is a good post with good points it in. Like rituals, I like to use the word habits because if you make it a habit to do the same thing everyday, it will turn into a ritual, sort of like brushing your teeth. Even though some things are harder to do, if you consistently do them over and over again, there will come a day where it will be hard to stop doing them, because as you said, it feels like your missing something. Thanks for this post.
Tristan Lee’s great blog post..Balancing Responsibility and Freedom
It is a very good post. In these tough economic times people can lose their balance, confidence and cool. Rituals and discipline are a very effective way to keep your focus and continue accomplishing something (Health, reading, writing, family time, job search etc.) little by little. Thank you for sharing.
I have a number of rituals I practice daily. I start my day with a 15 to 30 minute soak in the hot tub.Then I dive into the swimming pool and do a few water exercises. Then I pick a few herbs from the garden to add to my morning coffee.I view these activities as ideal elements, elements of what would be an ideal day. Incorporating a few ideal elements at the start of my day makes it easier to get out of bed and get moving. I also find I am in a better mood and better prepared for the day.
The whole concept of rituals is so powerful. Days fall away so quickly, and you can be either gaining ground in your life, or losing it. Rituals are a great way to make sure you’re gaining ground each day.
I recommend picking a ritual in each area of life that assures you’re gaining ground each day.
Examples of Rituals For Each Area of Life:
1. Relationships: Spend at least 20 minutes snuggling your S.O. and telling them how much you love them each day.
2. Finances: Quickly review your budget on Mint.com to see if you’re on track.
3. Health: Do 30 Minutes of Aerobic Exercise (I know, obvious!)
4. Career: Spend 30 Minutes reading to improve your knowledge of your field.
You get the idea.
Rituals are actually the perfect type of goal for our site GoalTribe.com which sends reminders, scores your follow through, and connects you to accountability partners (allies) to push you to follow through!
Robin Krieglstein, CEO GoalTribe.com’s great blog post..How to Turn UNemployment into FUNemployment
This really is a great post, and this comment sounds like one of those comments that just says great post ! but its not !
It is very true that rituals can lead to a more organised life leading to efficiency, and this will in turn lead to more free time, which is probably the most important element in peoples lives.
Most things can be bought, but time never can be.
Just wish I could be more organised !
Great post…so glad you included “writing down your goals everyday” as part of the daily ritual.
Setting your goals is one thing, but most people tend to forget what their original goals are once they are become busy with their everyday routines. Writing down one’s goal is an innovative and helpful way of reminding people not to lose sight of their original goals.
just testing again
Stephen Mills´s last blog ..Where Are You Now?
It is a very good post.
this post guide me, i had to do new update in my blog and give comment and set schedule for that to get update in my life.
i love to bookmark this post, its really nice tips to update yourself with routine life by blog and blog commenting.